To address potential selection and school quality effects in tests of the efficacy of single-sex schools, the achievement of girls attending a public single-sex magnet middle school (N = 122) was compared to that of two samples: (a) girls who applied to but were waitlisted at the single-sex school (N = 236) and (b) girls who applied to and attended a coeducational magnet school (N = 134). Once selection and school quality effects were taken into account, the students in the single-sex and coeducational schools performed equally well. Furthermore, results suggest that student achievement is more strongly influenced by the quality of the school than its gender composition. Implications for research and social policy are discussed. / text

Since 2013, over half of all gender-selective women's colleges in the United States have adopted admission policies that outline varying biological, social, and legal criteria for who may apply to their institution. In effect, these policies opened the gates to admission, driven by the goal to be more inclusive to transgender applicants, especially trans* women. This dissertation examines if and how these policies enact missions of social justice, diversity, and inclusion through the informal practices, production, and regulation of gender on campus. How do gender-selective women's colleges go from trans* admitting to trans* serving? Through a nine-month ethnography of trans* admission policies at two gender-selective women's colleges, including 126 interviews with students, alumni, faculty, staff, and administrators; archival document analysis regarding trans* and queer history on campus; and participant observation of events and spaces on campus with trans* students, my objective is to describe the world that takes shape when gender and feminism become institutionalized, routine, and used as descriptions to both include and exclude. I contend that the impact of these admission policies is not limited to the application process, but rather the experiences of matriculated students are shaped by the gendered norms and discourses structured within the policies themselves. Findings suggest that despite the fact that these policies, formally, allow for transgender students to apply and enroll to gender-selective women's colleges, institutionalized commitments to inclusion obscure and even intensify existing gender inequality, particularly for students who do not fit within normative ideals of the "right way to be trans*" including those who are low-income, non-white, and trans* men. Because the feminist missions of these colleges continue to reaffirm an ideal of cisgender womanhood on campus, the extent to which these inclusion policies were able to make fundamental structural changes in how gendered power, resources, and opportunities are distributed was limited at best. As such, this dissertation is a call to think about gender as an institutional product; not simply in terms of the politics that are attached to the experiences, bodies, and identities, but in the very constitution of gender as a social category. As an ethnography of how these categories become comprehensible, admissible, and livable, this dissertation complicates our understanding of how policies work, how gender is reinforced in the women's college setting, and how to transform institutional practices through a trans* justice framework. / Doctor of Philosophy / Since my graduation from Smith College in 2013, over half of all gender-selective women's colleges in the United States have publicly adopted admission policies outlining up to fourteen different combinations of biomedical, social, and legal criteria for who may apply to their institutions. In effect, these policies define fourteen different ways to be a "woman" that honor both the experiences and identities of students as well as the histories, traditions, and missions of gender-selective women's colleges. While I am proud of my alma mater for adopting such a policy, I have been struck by the ensuing tensions and debates that occurred among students and my fellow alumni about who belonged within our community. My time at Smith equipped me with new concepts, identities, and possibilities of what community means by being with people of other sexes, genders, races, sexualities, abilities, socio-economic statuses, and mindsets. Gender in this feminist space, in other words, was about so much more than a singular common experience of biology. Hence, the trans* policy raised more questions than answers for me: How do my trans* peers experience the woman-centered atmosphere of gender-selective women's colleges? In what ways do these policies and other institutional practices support these students? Through this dissertation, I sought to understand the experiences of trans* students enrolled in two gender-selective women's colleges by mapping the implementation and impact of trans* inclusion on campus. I wanted to know how these policies—and gender-selective women's colleges more broadly—shape institutionalized feminist missions of social justice. Over the span of nine-months, I spent time at two gender-selective women's colleges, one with a policy that admits trans* women, men, and non-binary students and another that limits trans* admission to trans* women, and conducted 126 interviews with students, alumni, faculty, staff, and administrators; archival document analysis regarding trans* and queer history on campus; and participant observation of events and spaces on campus with trans* students. I found that despite the fact that these policies, formally, allow for transgender students to apply and enroll to gender-selective colleges, the institutional commitments to inclusion obscured and even intensified existing gender inequality particularly for students who do not fit within normative ideals of the "right way to be trans*" including those who are low-income, non-white, and trans* men. Because the feminist missions of these colleges continue to reaffirm an ideal of cisgender womanhood on campus, the extent to which these inclusion policies were able to make fundamental changes to support transgender students was limited at best, and violent at worst. This does not suggest that there was no hope. Rather, students found ways to navigate these formal policies, resources, and spaces to create safer environments for their community, surviving and thriving in environments that were antithetic-to-hostile to their inclusion. As a result, I conclude that the implementation of a singular policy is not an adequate solution to full inclusion. Rather, we must consider how policy and practice may limit inclusion through intersections of race, class, sexuality, ability, and other axes of identity. As such, this dissertation is a call to think about how gender-selective women's colleges can go from trans* admitting to trans* serving.

Thesis advisor: Henry Braun / There is a broad interest in narrowing achievement gaps among all groups of students and improving education by scientifically sound methods. On October 25, 2006, the United States Department of Education published new regulations allowing single-sex education in public schools whenever schools think it will improve student achievement. Thus far, studies comparing single-sex with coeducational schools have been carried out at the national level mostly in England, Australia and Jamaica, while US' studies were limited to Catholic schools. Few studies reported descriptive statistics or effect sizes and most studies differ in the criteria and statistical controls they use to compare single-sex and coeducation. This dissertation presents models for science achievement and attitudes towards science for 8th -grade students attending either single-sex or coeducation schools in Hong Kong and New Zealand, using the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) datasets from 1995, 1999, and 2003. To properly account for the nested structure of data, an HLM model was estimated for each sex, for each of the two jurisdictions at three time points, corresponding to the three TIMSS administrations. The within - country results were compared to see if differences between single-sex and coed schools were consistent over time. In addition, this dissertation proposed an approach to examine the sensitivity of the estimated effects of school-type on student outcomes to the presence of unmeasured variables which may introduce hidden selection bias, using a modification of the method proposed by Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983). Based on its conditional distribution with an instrumental variable, chosen based on the review of single-sex literature, the Monte Carlo simulated values of the unobserved variable were used as level-1 predictors in a one-way ANCOVA with random effects. The sensitivity analysis was limited to science achievement of Hong-Kong's girls in TIMSS 2003. Findings show that single-sex education contributed to girls' science performance and attitudes in NZL 1999 and HKG 1999 and 2003, and low sensitivity for school-type contrast. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Research, Measurement, and Evaluation.

The purpose of this study was to identify instructional practices that are effective for teaching boys in all-boys, independent schools in Virginia. Teachers' self-reported levels of preparedness to teach boys was also investigated. The study was a basic qualitative study that used a qualitatively designed survey to collect data regarding the instructional teaching practices used by teachers of all-boys, independent schools in Virginia. The reported data identified several instructional practices that align with prior research conducted by Reichert and Hawley (2010b). The findings of this study indicated that active movement and hands-on, interactive learning are effective instructional practices for teaching boys. Additionally, the study indicated that teachers are prepared to teach boys, and relationships built on trust and respect are important for boys to learn. / Doctor of Education / The purpose of this study was to identify instructional practices that are effective for teaching boys in all-boys, independent schools in Virginia. Teachers' self-reported levels of preparedness to teach boys was also investigated. For the purposes of this study, the term "instructional practice" refers to a specific teaching method used in a lesson, unit of study, or assigned task that is effective. The participants could deem the practice effective for a variety of reasons, either measurable or immeasurable, including but not limited to a boy's performance level, behavior, engagement, attentiveness, motivation, and/or overall quality of work. The study was a basic qualitative study that used a qualitatively designed survey to collect data regarding the instructional teaching practices used by teachers of all-boys, independent schools in Virginia. The reported data identified several instructional practices that align with prior research conducted by Reichert and Hawley (2010b). The findings of this study indicated that active movement and hands-on, interactive learning are effective instructional practices for teaching boys. Additionally, the study indicated that teachers are prepared to teach boys, and relationships built on trust and respect are important for boys to learn.

The purpose of this study was to research student perspectives about, and participation in, leadership and service at Catholic female single-sex high schools. This study draws data from a Catholic female single-sex high school in a metropolitan area of the United States. Data collection included school document review, site observation, and interviews of current students (n=10), young alumnae (n=5), mature alumnae (n=5), and current faculty and staff (n=6). The data was analyzed using an adapted theoretical framework of Wenger's (1998) social theory of learning, informed by Lave and Wenger's (1991) concept of communities of practice. This study addresses how the situated experience of the Catholic female single-sex high school affects students' expectations, values, and behaviors regarding leadership and service. The data show that the situated experience of a Catholic female single-sex high school encouraged engagement and interest in leadership and service. Students were empowered to believe that gender should not be an obstacle in seeking positions of leadership or service. However, although the environment was successful in advocating for participation in leadership and service, the social structure, social practices, identity formation, and situated environment tended to reinforce traditional gender-based notions of leadership and service. The culture of the school did not encourage the use of a critical lens to view the inequity that women experience, resulting in student expectations, behaviors, and values that were reproduced from the dominant culture in society. Student relationship to community and Catholicity is also discussed. In order to achieve the benefits of female empowerment advocated by the school, greater emphasis should be placed on identifying and addressing the obstacles to female leadership and service in society at large. There should be continued research to identify effective strategies for empowering female students to participate in leadership and service opportunities in high school, while providing them with a clearer sense of the challenges they will face in leadership and service positions later in life. In this way, the mission of Catholic female single-sex high schools can be more fully realized, which will hasten the day when true gender equity is achieved in the broader social context.

Students in a large mid-Atlantic city graduate from the public district high schools at an average annual rate of fifty-six percent. This low rate of high school completion predicts future financial and social instability for not only those individuals who drop out of school, but also for their surrounding community. The research on dropouts highlights the significance that students' low levels of academic and social engagement in school have on their decisions to leave school. Advocates for single-sex education argue that students engage and achieve at high levels when learning in this educational model. According to the current literature, students' success in single-sex schools is primarily a result of the proacademic choice that they and their guardians make when electing to attend a single-sex school. Through focus groups, interviews, and observations, this study explores what student engagement looks like at an all-girls urban neighborhood public high school that is non-selective and where the proacademic choice of students is not a factor. With new federal policy measures advocating innovation in public education, single-sex schools - historically inaccessible to minority students from low-income communities - are finding a foothold in urban public school systems across the country. This study aims to illuminate the extent to which a single-sex school serves as a "site of transformation" for young women of color from a low-income neighborhood. The realization of the school's mission, to interrupt the social reproduction of the neighborhood through the education of its young women, depends on its students' graduation from high school and their access to and success through college. Data related to various features of the school are analyzed to highlight how student engagement is promoted and inhibited at the school and ultimately results in transformative and/or reproductive educational experiences for students. / Urban Education

Thesis ((Ph.D. (Mathematics Education)) -- University of Limpopo, 2016 / The focus in this thesis was on the approaches that seek to compare two study arms in the absence of randomisation when the interclass correlation coefficient is greater than zero. Many reports on performance of learners in Grade 12 have used ordinary regression models (such as logistic regression model and linear regression models) which ignore clustering effect, and descriptive statistics (e.g., averages and standard deviations for continuous variables, and proportions expressed as percentages and frequencies). These models do not only bias point estimates but also give falsely narrow confidence intervals. The study was applied to two of the nine provinces of South Africa: Gauteng Province and Western Cape Province in 2008, 2009 and 2010 academic years. Causal models, and in particular, hierarchical models (or disaggregated approach), unlike descriptive analyses, are more powerful as they are able to adjust for individual covariates. For the analysis of continuous variables; Western Cape Province was expected to significantly score higher marks than Gauteng Province in 2008 (Crude estimate: 0.782) and 2009 (Crude estimate: 0.957 ) while Gauteng Province was expected to score higher marks than Western Cape Province in 2010 (Crude estimate: −0.302). Adjusted models indicate that Western Cape Province performed better than Gauteng Province in 2008 and 2009 but not in 2010 where Gauteng Province performed better than Western Cape Province after adjusting for gender. In case of binary outcome; the crude estimates favoured Western Cape Province than Gauteng Province in 2008 (Odds ratio = 1.16) and 2009 (Odds ratio = 1.19). Otherwise, the crude estimates favoured Gauteng Province in 2010 (Odds ratio = 0.11). The proportion of female learners in Gauteng Province ranged between 54.48% and 54.99%, while in Western Cape Province it ranged between 56.78% and 57.16%, in 2008 through 2010 academic years. Proportion of female learners in Western Cape Province were found to be higher than those in Gauteng during this period. At least 70.42% of learners in Gauteng and at least 73.96% of learners in Western Cape Province passed Grade 12 during the years 2008 to 2010. Through the application of causal model we have learned that although gender is not a significant predictor of the overall learner performance in Grade 12, the effect of gender gave the mixed findings depending on the nature of the outcome. The xi effect of gender on continuous endpoint (marks) suggests that a model of single-sex classrooms or single-sex schools may be adopted so as to mitigate the inherent perceptions and stereotype regarding learner-gender. However, the results based on binary endpoint (pass/not pass) suggest that coeducation system is the best bet. A school quintile is a significant predictor of the overall learner performance in the two provinces. The resourceful schools are more likely to produce learners with higher marks. Also, the resourced schools than the less or under resourced schools are more likely to produce the favourable results (higher marks (%) or/and pass) in the two provinces.

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This study investigated whether girls achieve better results in Physical Science in single sex environments or in co-educational classes. Thirteen independent South African schools where children were of similar socio-economic background were considered. Grade 12 Matriculation Physical Science examination results for 1999 to 2003 were analysed using Bonferroni (Dunn) t-Tests and Scheffe's Tests. Questionnaires were completed by a small number of students in order to compare their attitudes towards Physical Science and examined qualitatively. There were significant differences found by the administration of the Bonferroni (Dunn) t-Tests and Scheffe's Tests in 2000, 2001 and 2002 to indicate that girls in single sex schools achieved better results in Science than the co-educational schools. However, in 1999 and 2003 there was no significant difference in the results achieved, and so there may be other factors that are more important predictors of achievement than whether the schools are mixed or single sex. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Natural Science Teaching)