At the Van Devender middle school in West Virginia, all students are segregated by gender
Using research by Leonard Sax, who founded the National Association for Single Sex Public
Education, girls are in classrooms with dimmer lights than the boys, and girls must share desks
and sit still. The classrooms for boys provide single desks and beanbag chairs and the students
are free to move about as they wish. When some families sued, with the help of the American
Civil Liberties Union, a federal judge blocked the program, noting that “certain gender-based
teaching techniques based on stereotypes and lacking any scientific basis may very well be
harmful to students.” Similar programs have been established in Louisiana, Kentucky, Alabama,
Florida, Maine, Mississippi, and Virginia, and also are being challenged by law suits. Other
academic researchers have challenged Sax’ research.
What will be an ideal response?
1. Are there ethical reasons for insisting that public school children be educated in
coeducational classrooms? Develop arguments in support of that position. If research on
the benefits of gender separation were widely accepted by numerous scholars, would
that change your opinion?
2. Other educational research suggests that young African-American boys learn more
effectively in all-male classrooms with male teachers. At least some public school
systems are offering gender-segregated classrooms based on this research. If that
research were persuasive to a wide spectrum of scholars and the benefits to young
African-American boys was substantial, would that justify the segregation by gender?
What ethical arguments could be developed to support this conclusion?
3. If further research demonstrated that young Caucasian children learn more effectively in
all-white classrooms with white teachers, should that research justify racially segregated
classrooms? When, if ever, should we use research on learning to permit segregation in
public school classrooms?
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