Boys Themselves: A Return to Single-Sex Education

Though the roots of single-sex schooling extend back to the very origins of education in this country in this century the institution has been an easy target for criticism – the common perception being that coeducation is obviously better because its more equal and democratic. By the mid-1980s this logic had become so accepted that most single-sex schools had disappeared and in fact few people cared. For many that they existed at all at the end of the twentieth century was little more than a quirk an evolutionary oversight. Yet their dwindling numbers were something of a paradox since a growing body of research described the clear advantages of all-boy and all-girl schools in both cognitive and social outcomes. Indeed the evidence grew so strong that many researchers began to ask what were the benefits of coeducation. To find the truth behind these contradictions and to investigate the form of single-sex education Michael Ruhlman returned to University School in Cleveland Ohio the boys day school he had graduated from more than a dozen years earlier. Through an academic year spent shadowing its controversial headmaster lively teachers and the boys themselves Ruhlman untangles the issues and constructs an insightful narrative of both the world of single-sex education and the world of one school which inevitably raises questions regarding school culture and environment questions of moral judgment rigor and the importance of language – issues fundamental to the education of all children.