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Science or political agenda

Stuff carries the story: Single-sex schools rate poorly in study
The article, published today in Science magazine by researchers from the American Council for CoEducational Schooling, says biological differences between the sexes have no significant effect on learning.

It says there is no scientific support for single-sex education, and that separating boys and girls in school may increase gender stereotyping and sexism. But Education Ministry figures show pupils at New Zealand single-sex schools achieve better NCEA results than those at co-ed schools.
And the reporters, to their credit, do what reporters should do and see how that stacks up in out local experience.
The article's claims contrast with findings in a New Zealand study published in 2009, which studied the difference between co-ed and single-sex education over a 25-year period.

"The New Zealand data very clearly shows boys do worse in co-ed schools, and there is no gender gap in single-sex schools," the New Zealand study's supervisor, University of Otago professor David Fergusson, said yesterday.
This so called "study" has had more hysterical reporting elsewhere though using the usual meaningless noise words like "sexism" and "inequality".

Anyway I checked out who the authors of this study were.

Here they are:
Diane F. Halpern, trustee professor, psychology, Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, California; Lise Eliot, associate professor, neuroscience, Rosalind Franklin University, North Chicago, Illinois; Rebecca S. Bigler, professor, psychology, University of Texas; Richard A. Fabes, professor and director, social and family dynamics, Laura D. Hanish, associate professor, and Carol Lynn Martin, professor, social and family dynamics, Arizona State University; and Janet Hyde, professor, psychology and women's studies, University of Wisconsin--Madison.

A gender diverse bunch - no?

Comments

  1. there is no gender gap in single-sex schools"

    I wonder if Prof Fergusson offered the reporter any theories on what might account for that...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, I thought that one was wrong. It seems extraordinary that people can say "there's no evidence" when there is in fact good evidence.

    Like the time the "Yes Vote" site claimed there was no scientific support for positive results from smacking, when there was one very solid study done by someone in the building next to the person who wrote the article, in the same university.

    But your average joe isn't going to expect such blatant dishonesty from academics.

    ReplyDelete

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