From the Cantons

Abstract

At the invitation of the Department of Pedagogical Psychology and the Department for College and University Teachers, a meeting took place from March 16-18, 1995, among researchers from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland who are working on projects in the coeducational teaching of the natural sciences. The workshop was made possible by contributions from Max and Else Beer of the Brawand Fund and the Swiss Academy for Natural Sciences. Since the mid-eighties, voices claiming that coeducation is a form of teaching prejudicial to girls have been multiplying, although the proportion of women in precollegiate high school in Switzerland is now 50 percent, which is matched by a figure of 41 percent in higher education and the universities, the number of women in higher education has increased by eleven percent in the last fifteen years. The number of higher education diplomas going to women has increased at roughly the same rate: the number of masters' degrees has increased from 24 percent to 37 percent and the number of doctors' degrees from 14 percent to 26 percent. International trends are reproduced in Switzerland: the education system has formally opened its doors to women.