How Context Mediates Policy: The Implementation of Single Gender Public Schooling in California

Abstract

In this article, we present findings about the implementation of single gender public schooling in California—a movement that signifies a growing interest in school choice and private sector solutions to public education problems. We analyze qualitative data gathered in a study of 12 single gender academies (6 boys; 6 girls). As well-meaning educators responded to California's single gender academies legislation, they designed schools and used resources to address the pressing needs of students in each community, such as low achievement, poverty, or violence, rather than to address gender bias. The impetus for single gender schooling in each context affected the organization, curriculum, and pedagogy in each academy, as did educators’ ideologies about gender. In the end, the politics surrounding the legislation, the resource interests of district and school administrators, and the lack of institutional support for this gender-based reform coalesced to structure the demise of most of the single gender academies. We consider the implications of these findings for the viability of single gender schooling as a public school option.

The media, marketing, and single sex schooling

“…Girls' schools do not necessarily promote a gender equity agenda (Datnow et al , 2001). The gendered nature of the curriculum (Boaler, 1998;Warrington & Younger, 2000) is not necessarily challenged in such schools.…”

All-boy mathematics classes in middle school.

“…Readings from the research literature and my own previous investigations suggest that educational benefits do not automatically develop when boys and girls are separated but that benefits depend on other factors such as how a single-gender program is implemented and how teachers adapt instruction for boys and for girls (Datnow, et al, 2001;Baker, 2002;Herr & Arms, 2002; school outcomes such as organizational health and collective teacher efficacy (Good & Brophy, 1986;Marzano, 2003;Goddard, et al, 2004).…”

“…In 1997, 12 academies were funded, six for girls and six for boys. In a study that included participants from these California academies (Datnow, Hubbard, and Conchas, 2001), researchers interviewed over 200 teachers and students and found that the great majority of teachers did not tailor instruction to particular groups. Although several teachers reported selecting different reading materials for boys and girls, few curricular and teaching modifications resulted from the separation of girls and boys.…”

“…Gender equity issues, stated as the original purpose for the establishment of the academies, received little or no inquiry. In the end, the politics surrounding the legislation and the lack of district support caused five of the six pairs of California singlegender academies to close by the fall of 2000 (Datnow, Hubbard, and Conchas, 2001). …”

“…There are now over 100 public schools in the U.S. which offer singlegender options, up from four schools in 1996 (Murray, 2003). Even so, results of recent single-gender experiments in public education revealed that schools were merely separating boys and girls and that most teachers did not tailor instruction for their gendered classes (Datnow, Hubbard, and Conchas, 2001;Baker, 2002;Herr & Arms, 2002).…”