The Claremont Institute releases a study that indicates that coeducational institutions tend to reinforce gender stereotypes rather than break them down. That is, women are far more likely to take math and science courses at a girls only school and similarly, boys are more likely to take art and theater at a boys only school. Critics will damn Claremont as partisan and so on, but I think there's something there. Single sex schooling makes sense for many reasons. That is not to say that boys and girls should be segregated, far from it. Rather, there should be mixing in a social setting rather than an educational one. Either that or some sort of gradual mixing as the kids get older. The very young kids likely benefit from coeducation. My son's only experience with little girls is school. There aren't many of them in our neighborhood and he's only now figuring out that girls are somehow, different. However, once those differences emerge, it makes sense to separate them by sex to create the best environment for everyone. Boys and girls learn differently, they behave differently and when mixed, they're moritified of say/doing something dumb in front of each other. There's enough pressure that comes with being a teenager and anything we can do to reduce that pressure at school is a good thing.
That state of the DE blogosphere
I've been holding off on commenting on the imbroiglio over a posting at DelawareLiberal for Veteran's Day for several reasons. First and foremost is the situation at home (more on that later) but also because I wanted to get some distance from it to be sure I was seeing things clearly. I've been reading DV's stuff since before he joined Jason on his site and I've noticed a change in tone which seems to have accelerated of late. I enjoyed going to the old site because it was one the few places I could engage someone with different ideas than mine without things crashing headlong into Godwin's law within 3 posts. In short, DV acted in good faith and was rather deferential to his visitors which I greatly appreciated. Since pulling the old blog and posting on DelwareLiberal, I've noticed that ground has eroded rather quickly. I've never agreed with anything Jason posted but found him a book end to DelaThought's knee jerk partisan right wingery. Fi...
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