Coeducational Classrooms Research Articles

Off-Record Politeness Strategies Used by the EFL Teachers for Blended Classroom

The purpose of this study was to determine the politeness strategies used by teachers when teaching English in coeducational classrooms and the impact of these strategies on students. We focused on analyzing teachers' verbal perceptions of off-record politeness and explained the implications of politeness as found in two English lesson recordings. Researchers employed targeted selection and informative qualitative studies to obtain data. Data were collected through interviews and observations. Researchers transcribed the conversation and applied the theory of Brown and Levinson to analyze it. The subjects of this study were high school English teachers in South Sulawesi. Researchers observed classrooms by recording teacher activity and analyzing it using The theory of etiquette techniques by Brown and Levinson. Consequently, the effects on students in learning are motivation, student attitudes (emotional), respect for teachers, self-confidence, activity, participation in the teaching and learning process, and integrity.

A Comparative Study on Engineering Student's Performance between the Single-Gender Classroom and Co-educational Classroom: A Case Study of Islamic University of Technology

The purpose of this research was to conduct a comparative study to find out which setting performs better between students in the Co-educational Instruction setting and Students in the Single-gender Instruction set. In this research process, the researchers compared the performance of students who receive instruction in a single-gender classroom with the performance of other students who receive instruction in a co-educational classroom. The study population was 756 students of single and mixed-gender streams, classified into two groups (A & B). Out of this, one single-gender male class of 268 students (group A) and one COED class of 488 students (group B) were sampled from the Islamic University of Technology (IUT) in Bangladesh. The research adopted a quasi-experimental research design. The instruments used for data collection were the summative assessment of both groups' first and second-semester results that serve as test instruments. Frequency counts and the Arithmetic means were used for descriptive analysis. The independent sample t-test was used to test the hypotheses. Social learning theory emphasizes the importance of biological, social, and cultural impacts on human behavioral development and learning, especially on gender and genders specific traits and roles. Based on the analyses and interpretation of the data, the researcher found that male students perform better academically in single-gender classes, contrary to their academic performance when mixed with females in the same classes. Thus, single-gender instruction could be a more favorable environment for male students than a co-educational instruction environment.

Mixed but Not Scrambled: Gender Gaps in Coed Schools with Single-Sex Classrooms

In this paper we study the effect on the math gender gap from attending a coeducational school with single-sex classrooms versus attending a school with coeducational classrooms. That is, we compare the performance of girls versus boys within schools with single-sex classrooms compared to the performance of girls versus boys within schools with coeducational classrooms, using a difference-in-difference approach with school fixed effects. In line with the results of the previous literature that has found positive effects for female students, we find that coeducational schools with single-sex classrooms reduce the math gender gap by more than half. The effect is consistent with an increase in the math achievement of female students with no decrease in the achievement of male students. Finally, this effect is not driven by teacher characteristics or student-teacher gender matching, but it seems to be driven by how female students respond to the gender composition of the classroom.

English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning assessment in single-sex and co-educational classrooms

This study investigates the effects of Single-Sex and Co-educational classrooms on English learning outcomes. This study is a causal-comparative study in ex post facto design. Three classes consisting of 73 students (boy and girl-single-sex classes and a co-educational class) from a private secondary school in Central Java, Indonesia, are the sample. An integrated English test, equating the material from the 2013 curriculum and CEFR for English, was used. It tested four skills in English consisting of Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. Expert judgments already checked the instrument through face validity. Item internal consistency from all skills was good, and the reliability was too in a good category. This study indicates that organizing a Single-sex classroom in the English learning process has a positive and significant effect on English achievement. Being in a Single-Sex classroom benefitted the students in their outcomes in learning English. This study also implies that teachers, especially English teachers, must understand their students' learning strategies to implement the appropriate learning strategies. It is because male and female students learn something in different ways.

STUDENTS’ LANGUAGE LEARNING STRATEGIES DIFFERENCE IN AN INDONESIAN EFL SINGLE-GENDER CLASSROOM

AbstractThe issue of single-gender classroom is identified as the preference classroom system in education around the world. This classroom system is adopted due to female and male students’ performance in the learning process including English subject. In Indonesia, the issue of single-gender classroom is not publically implemented, co-educational classroom is preferred. However, some cities are promoted the single-gender classroom, specifically the cities which promote the religious education such as in Tasikmalaya, West Java, Indonesia. Due to the pre-observation in a boarding school implemented the single-gender classroom, there is an exact different between female and male achievement in English classes. There are some factors affect the students’ achievement. Learning strategies is one of the most important thing influent the achievement. Therefore, the main focus of the research is observing different students preference in learning strategies. Questionnaire and interview are formed as data collecting techniques. Consequently, there was an exact different between female and male students in using language learning strategies. Female students are common in performing metacognitive learning strategy. While, male students are prefer in implementing cognitive learning strategy. In the comparison, female students use the learning strategies more often than the male student, specifically in metacognitive and social learning strategies.Keywords: Learning strategies, single-gender classroom, Female and male differences, Indonesian EFL classroom, Students’ achievement factors.

Students' gendered perceptions of mathematics in middle grades single‐sex and coeducational classrooms

AbstractWith the introduction of single‐sex classroom settings in coeducational public schools, there is an ongoing debate as to whether single‐sex education may reduce or reinforce traditional stereotypes and gender roles. In this article we present findings from a study that investigated the extent to which mathematics is perceived as a gendered domain among adolescent students enrolled in single‐sex classes and coeducational classes. Further we analyzed the relationships between student characteristics, class‐type, and teacher variables on students' perceptions of gender in mathematics. Findings from this study challenge the traditional view of mathematics as a male domain. Female participants more frequently considered mathematics to be a female domain than the male participants. Male participants, on the other hand, typically did not stereotype the mathematics as a gendered domain. Results from this study do not indicate, for girls at least, that participation in single‐sex classes results in a greater propensity to stereotype mathematics as a gendered domain than would be the case in coeducational classes. This study contributes to the evolving discourse and understanding of adolescents' gendered attitudes and beliefs towards mathematics—especially in light of stereotyped assertions that have a bearing on efforts to promote the learning of mathematics and science.

Motivation and Engagement with Physics: a Comparative Study of Females in Single-Sex and Co-educational Classrooms

It has been argued that the establishment of single-sex classes for females can increase their motivation and participation in physics. This paper reports on findings from a multi-occasional study among 90 female year 11 physics students across single-sex and co-educational high schools in Australia. The aim of this study was to identify the differences in motivation, engagement and sustained enrolment plans in relation to physics between female students in single-sex from those in co-educational settings. Fine-grained analyses at a physics topic-specific level indicated differences between these cohorts in their interest value, career value, gender-stereotyped attitudes, performance perceptions, sustained engagement and sustained enrolment intentions in relation with physics. Results revealed that both cohorts have high levels of achievement motivation in relation to physics irrespective of their classroom composition; however, females from single-sex schools showed higher values for some constructs across various physics topics. This paper highlights the scarcity of research into females’ sustained participation in physics, once they commence studying physics, and the difference class composition makes to females’ achievement motivation and future enrolment intentions.

Gender integration in coeducational classrooms: Advancing educational research and practice.

Despite the fact that most boys and girls are in classrooms together, there is considerable variation in the degree to which their classrooms reflect gender integration (GI). In some classrooms, boys' and girls' relationships with each other are generally positive and harmonious. However, in other classes, students tend to only work with classmates of the same gender (i.e., gender segregation, GS), and cross-gender interactions seldom occur or, when they do, they may not be positive. As such, the coeducational context of schools provides no assurance that boys and girls work effectively together to learn, solve academic problems, and support one another in their academic efforts. The purpose of this perspective paper is to call attention to the importance of studying and understanding the role of GI in contemporary U.S. coeducational classrooms. Some of the costs associated with the failure to consider GI also are identified, as are implications for future research and educational practice. (PsycINFO Database Record

An evaluation of a body image intervention in adolescent girls delivered in single-sex versus co-educational classroom settings

Body dissatisfaction is now recognized as having considerable negative impact on social, psychological, and physical health, particularly in adolescent girls. Consequently, we have developed a six-session co-educational body image intervention (Happy Being Me Co-educational) designed to reduce body dissatisfaction and its risk factors in Grade 7 girls. In addition to evaluating the program's efficacy, we aimed to identify whether girls would benefit equally when it was delivered as a universal intervention to a whole class including both boys and girls (co-educational delivery), or delivered as a selective intervention to girls only (single-sex delivery). Participants were 200 Grade 7 girls from five schools in Melbourne, Australia. Schools were randomly allocated to receive the intervention in single-sex classes (n=74), co-educational classes (n=73), or participate as a no-intervention control (n=53). Girls completed self-report assessments of body dissatisfaction, psychological (internalization of the thin ideal, appearance comparison, and self-esteem) and peer environment (weight-related teasing and appearance conversations) risk factors for body dissatisfaction, and dietary restraint, at baseline, post-intervention, and at 6-month follow-up. Significant improvements in body dissatisfaction and psychological risk factors were observed in the intervention group at post-intervention and these were maintained at follow-up for psychological risk factors. Importantly, no significant differences between universal and selective delivery were observed, suggesting that the intervention is appropriate for dissemination in both modes.

Still in the LEGO (LEGOS) room: female teachers designing curriculum around girls’ popular culture for the coeducational classroom in Australia

While the issue of boys’ dominance of the curriculum has a long history, the article examines this phenomenon in a contemporary context, through an empirical study with female teachers designing English curriculum around girls’ media in a coeducational secondary school in Victoria, Australia. In this space, teachers, and the researcher, produce and perform both individual gendered identities and plans for the identities of future student subjects, while negotiating subject positions made available to girls and women in broader social contexts. In this instance, negotiations that take place during the development of a unit of work on Mattel's Barbie website form the basis of feminist discourse analysis, enabling us to ‘take stock’ in thinking about what curriculum design is, about where the past is situated in relation to the present, and to question why, within a discursive feminist/postfeminist entanglement, the heritage of feminist intellectual thought in this area seems absent.

Single-sex school boys’ perceptions of coeducational classroom learning environments

Reviews in many countries have found little evidence of consistent advantages in either single-sex education or coeducation. Over the last three decades, coeducation has been introduced into many single-sex schools, but there is a dearth of evidence from the student perspective of the impact of such changes on the classroom learning environment. The Individualised Classroom Environment Questionnaire (ICEQ) was administered to 309 elementary and secondary boys from a single-sex school over 3 years prior to (T1), during (T2) and after (T3) the introduction of coeducation. Overall, boys perceived coeducational classrooms to be significantly more Personalised at T2, particularly at the secondary level, while Personalisation increased significantly from T2 to T3 at the elementary level. No significant changes were evident for the Participation, Independence, Investigation and Differentiation scales at either T2 or T3. These findings have implications for the ongoing single-sex/coeducation debate.

The Gendered Classroom: Girls' and Boys' Experiences in Postwar Germany

At the end of World War II, German educational administrators in the Soviet occupied zone of their nation decided to implement coeducation; that is, the schooling of girls and boys in the same classroom. This policy represented a radical break with German educational traditions, as well as with the western German zones' continued practice of gender-segregated schools. The reason for this move was as simple as it was ambitious: educational reformers of the Soviet zone were committed to a new kind of school, one that would offer all children the same education in order to permit active and equal participation of all citizens, male and female, in the “new Germany.” Educators estimated that over 90 percent of school-aged children attended school in the postwar years, approximately 15 percent of the entire population. Major change in young people's education could thus potentially bring about major social reform. Yet coeducation did not resolve the so-called “woman's question” of structural inequality, a theory elaborated by the nineteenth-century socialist August Bebel and of grave concern to the “antifascist democratic, educators of the postwar years. The implementation of the coeducational classroom, although an important move towards erasing gross disparities in educational opportunities for girls, still allowed for and even perpetuated gender-specific educational lessons and experiences.

Single-Gender and Co-Educational Special Education Classrooms: Latina Student Attitudes, Perceptions, and Experiences

This qualitative research was designed to give voice to Latina students in single-gender and co-educational secondary-level special education placements for students with mild to moderate learning disabilities. Classroom observations and interviews were conducted with Latina special education students and classroom teachers in both single-gender and coeducational special education classrooms in one urban school site serving a large special education population. The findings of the study indicate that the single-gender special education environment provides greater comfort levels and less distractions in the classroom and increased levels of classroom participation and school attendance than the co-educational classroom environment.

Single-Gender and Co-Educational Special Education Classrooms: Latina Student Attitudes, Perceptions, and Experiences

This qualitative research was designed to give voice to Latina students in single-gender and co-educational secondary-level special education placements for students with mild to moderate learning disabilities. Classroom observations and interviews were conducted with Latina special education students and classroom teachers in both single-gender and coeducational special education classrooms in one urban school site serving a large special education population. The findings of the study indicate that the single-gender special education environment provides greater comfort levels and less distractions in the classroom and increased levels of classroom participation and school attendance than the co-educational classroom environment.

Girls back off mathematics again: the views and experiences of girls in computer-based mathematics

The views and experiences of girls in two co-educational mathematics classrooms in which computers were regularly used were researched. Data were collected by observation and videotaping of lessons, questionnaire, and interviews of students and the teachers. In this paper case studies of six girls are presented. Their ‘stories’ reveal a diversity of experiences and views and multiple gender identities. High achieving girls persisted as “outsiders within,” other girls “backed off”, and exceptional girls challenged gender stereotypes. Implications for social justice in mathematics in the age of the super highway are discussed.

'You're Hopeless I Swear to God': Shifting masculinities in classroom talk

In this article the author aims to problematise the discourse of masculinity in the co-educational classroom. Moving strategically sideways to focus on boys rather than girls, it is argued that 'masculinity' is not a fixed essence but a shifting gendered social identity. Although mass culture generally assumes there is a fixed, true masculinity, not all boys and men take up the same kind of masculinity, nor do they experience 'maleness' in the same way. Social class and subcultures (as well as other inflections of identity not discussed in this article) profoundly affect the presentation and representation of masculine identities. Moreover, masculinity as a particular configuration of gender is constituted in relation to local contexts within the meritocratic discourse of schooling. The ethnographic data in this article, which focuses on boys relating to girls in the classroom, show how varied the contexts of gender production can be even within the same roughly parallel configurations of task and location. It is concluded that masculinity is above all a social identity accomplishment.

The Evolution, Validation, and Use of a Personal Form of the Catholic School Classroom Environment Questionnaire

The research reported in this article contributes to classroom environment research and Catholic education by describing the development, validation, and use of a personal form of the Catholic School Classroom Environment Questionnaire (CSCEQ). Using the class form of the CSCEQ as a basis, a 49-item instrument that assesses a student’s perceptions of his or her own role in the class was developed and validated with a sample of 1317 students from 52 religious education classes in 17 Australian Catholic high schools. This instrument assesses seven classroom environment dimensions: Student Affiliation, Interactions, Cooperation, Task Orientation, Order and Organization, Individualization, and Teacher Control. The research revealed differences in the religious education classroom environment in Catholic boys’, girls’, and coeducational schools, differences between grade 9 and grade 12 classes, and differences between boys’ and girls’ perceptions of the environment in coeducational classrooms. This application of the CSCEQ’s personal form demonstrates its usefulness as a research tool in Catholic high school religious education classes.

An Exploratory Study of Risk-Taking and Attitudes in a Girls-Only Middle School Math Class

In this study, conducted over 2 years, I examined the attitudes of girls toward themselves and their classmates, and their behavior, in a girls-only seventh- (prealgebra) and eighth-grade (algebra) math classroom (with 1 teacher) in a coeducational public middle school. Classroom observations and interviews with 14 of the 24 girls provided the data. The girls reported, and the observational data revealed, that the girls were more likely to ask and answer questions about subject matter in the math class than they were in their other classes, which were coeducational. The girls also said that the girls-only setting enhanced their ability to learn math and their view of themselves as mathematicians. Without exception, they preferred the girls-only environment to a coeducational classroom.

Adolescent Receptivity to the Health Curriculum in Western Australian High Schools

Adolescents comprise a substantial proportion of the at risk population for sexually transmissible diseases and AIDS. They are also potentially amenable to the curricular influences of the high school. This study uses adolescents' perspectives and concerns regarding their sexuality and sexual relationships in which receptivity to the messages of health and sexuality curricula by adolescents provides the central focus for the investigation. The purpose was to investigate the question whether, given the same exposure to similar content and processes in sexuality education curricula in coeducational classrooms, differences in receptivity will occur between male and female high school students. It was found that, as the amount of sexuality education increased, the more receptive adolescents became to its content and processes, with females exhibiting higher receptivity than males.

Negotiating Gendered Identity in Classroom Disputes and Collaboration

In a mixed ability co-educational secondary classroom male and female students grapple with notions of femininity and masculinity while collectively developing a play for performance. A dispute arises when some of the girls push for themes common to teen romance fiction. Other students, male and female, strongly voice their disapproval of this trend. The teacher finds it hard to arbitrate effectively. Later, a high-achieving middle-class boy and a low-achieving working-class girl collaborate on the writing of dialogue for male characters. Their concerns in this enterprise are found to be quite different. In both instances of co-educational classroom relations examined in this paper, issues of social class positioning and related orientations to the consumption and production of written texts are shown to be at least as significant as gender in explicating interactional phenomena. The question of effective feminist pedagogy is addressed in terms of these considerations.