Co-Ed Boarding Schools
During the colonial era, only boys went to school, although girls learned to read at home or at dame schools. However, the founding fathers believed that education was necessary to the functioning of a democracy. After the American Revolution, hundreds of "common schools" funded by states and localities sprouted up. These one-room schoolhouses were mostly co-educational.
Private and parochial boarding schools and universities in the United States followed the European tradition of separating the sexes. Wealthy people usually employed governesses in their homes until their children reached age 13 years or so, and then sent them to single-sex boarding schools. For this reason, many of the boarding schools in the United States that date to the 19th or early 20th centuries began as single-sex.
In the 1970s, feminist activists demanded that boarding schools and other single-sex institutions stop segregating the sexes. Today many of the oldest and most prestigious boarding schools have become co-ed, although some retain the single-sex tradition.
Recent educational research is pointing to the advantages of single-sex education, so the pendulum appears to be swinging away from co-ed institutions.
PROS
Co-ed schools are a microcosm of society. Boys and girls can learn to work together and to relate to each other not just as sex objects or potential spouses, but also as co-workers and friends.
Girls and boys develop social skills by living and learning together. Boys treat girls in a more natural and friendly way in co-ed schools.
Some parents believe that segregation of the sexes is inherently against their principle of exposing their children to diversity in all its forms.
Some parents believe that girls who go to single-sex high schools are more likely to "go wild" when they enter co-ed colleges.
Some social scientists are challenging research extolling single-sex schools because it was done mostly in private schools among students of high socio-economic status.
CONS
There is compelling research that indicates children learn better and more efficiently if schools segregate the sexes.
Co-ed schools can become too competitive.
Co-ed schools are sometimes schools for boys that admit girls. An all-girls school is a school "for girls".
Research Co-ed Boarding Schools
