Educating boys: A comparison of educational attitudes of male graduates of single -sex and coed schools

It has become fashionable to believe that girls are being shortchanged by schools. In reality, girls achieve more academically than do boys and many more women than men earn college and graduate degrees. A more interesting difference lies in the persistent observation that girls tend to excel in the arts and humanities; boys in science and math. In schools where boys and girls compete, pressure to conform to these educational stereotypes becomes hard to resist. Advocates of single-sex education claim that, in the absence of girls, boys are more likely to explore school subjects traditionally ascribed to girls. If so, male graduates of single-sex schools would likely exhibit more positive attitudes toward the humanities and choose more diverse careers than would their cohorts who graduated from coed schools. Such effects should be magnified in boarding schools where the academic culture is more pervasive.;Four hypotheses were tested: (a) men graduated from boys' schools maintain more positive attitudes toward English, reading, and history than those from coed schools; (b) men graduated from boys' boarding schools maintain more positive attitudes toward their alma maters than those from boys' day or coed schools; (c) men graduated from boys' schools are more likely to have majored in the humanities in college; (d) men graduated from boys' schools are more likely to have entered careers that reflect a continued interest in the humanities.;Participants were 412 male alumni from three boys' boarding schools (n = 133), three boys' day schools (n = 142), three coed boarding schools (n = 77), and three coed day schools (n = 60). Each participant completed a battery of questionnaires designed to probe attitudes toward school subjects, school satisfaction, and career choices. The data supported hypotheses (a), (c), and (d) and partially supported hypothesis (b). Effect sizes were modest, but there was support for the notion that single-sex education promotes interest and success in the humanities for boys.