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What the Research Shows
The Benefits of Attending a Girls' School

"The students I met are learning to be their best selves, competent and comfortable with who they are. Isn't that what all children deserve?"
-- Karen Stabiner, author, "All Girls: Single-Sex Education and Why It Matters"

Picture a classroom. It doesn't matter what subject, or what grade level. Imagine the teacher asks a question of the class... and virtually every hand shoots right up into the air. Virtually every student is eager to answer, enthusiastic about learning.

This is a scene played out daily in the classrooms of NCGS member schools. Girls' school classrooms are places where education is prized, where teachers feel empowered, where girls are excited about being in school.

A Growing Consensus

In 1982, Harvard University researcher Carol Gilligan authored a book that would go on to trigger a revolution in education. With In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development, Dr. Gilligan established that girls think, interact, display leadership and make decisions in a way that is unique both psychologically and develop-mentally. The male-based model, she found, simply did not fit the way girls learn.

Dr. Gilligan's conclusions, as well as a growing awareness of disparities in academic performance between girls and boys, led to a closer examination of what actually goes on in a co-ed classroom. In Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America, the American Association of University Women (AAUW) found that girls routinely were called upon less often. Professors Myra and David Sadker echoed those findings in Failing at Fairness: How Schools Shortchange Girls, a compendium of 10 years of their research at American University.

Since then, single-sex education has been the subject of increasing interest among researchers, and several major reports have detailed the ways in which all-girl learning environments can be beneficial. A 2000 study of 4,274 girls' school alumnae, conducted for NCGS by the Goodman Research Group of Cambridge, Massachusetts, examined outcomes at single-sex schools for girls. The girls' school alumnae were overwhelmingly positive in their responses:

• 91% cited preparation for college and academic challenge as very good or excellent
• 88% would repeat their girls' school experience
• 83% perceived themselves to be better prepared for college than female counterparts from co-educational high schools
• 93% agreed that girls' schools provide greater leadership opportunities than coed schools; additionally, 80% had held leadership positions since graduating from high school
• 13% intended to major in math or science -- significantly more than females and males nationally (2% and 10% respectively)

Many participants in the Goodman study volunteered commentary in support of the survey questions; for example:

• "At the girls' school I attended, academics and being smart were the focus of most students."
• "I was constantly challenged, stimulated, exposed to new ideas, encouraged and supported."
• "Because of my girls' school experience, I developed a strong sense of myself and the confidence to make important choices in my life."

Researcher Cornelius Riordan, author of Girls and Boys in School: Together or Separate?, has spent years examining educational outcomes based on various school settings. Recently he summed up his findings in a Boston Globe editorial:

"Having conducted research on single-sex and co-educational schools for the past two decades, I have concluded that single-sex schools help to improve student achievement. My conclusions are based on high quality national data gathered by the National Center for Education Statistics, as well as on studies conducted around the globe."

Many countries overseas have significant student populations enrolled in single-sex schools, and collect detailed statistics for comparison purposes. In Great Britain, the National Foundation for Educational Research examined student performance data from 979 primary and 2,954 secondary schools. Among its objectives was to test assertions that single-sex education can be beneficial for girls and boys alike. The study concluded that:

• Girls’ schools help counter gender-stereotyping in subject choices
• Girls in single-sex schools perform better than girls in co-ed schools, regardless of socio-economic and ability levels
• Boys with low prior academic achievement score slightly better on the GCSE (a standardized test required for graduation) in boys’ schools than in co-ed schools
• Boys in single-sex grammar schools perform better than those in co-ed grammar schools

A similar conclusion comes out of Australia, where Dr. Ken Rowe, Principal Research Fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research, summarized the findings of several studies involving more than 270,000 students. Dr. Rowe presented the results of his research to The Second National Conference on Co-Education, held in Australia in April of 2000, telling the audience:

"Co-educational settings are limited in their capacity to accommodate the large differences in cognitive, social and developmental growth rates of girls and boys between the ages of 12 and 16. In contrast... evidence suggests that during these key adolescent years, single-sex settings better accommodate the specific developmental needs of students."

Dr. Rosemary C. Salomone, a professor at St. John's University School of Law, has conducted a similar survey of the available research. In her book Same, Different, Equal: Rethinking Single-Sex Schooling, Dr. Salomone writes:

"All-girls settings seem to provide girls a certain comfort level that helps them develop greater self-confidence and broader interests, especially as they approach adolescence. Research has found that single-sex schools and classes promote less-gender-polarized attitudes toward certain subjects – math and science in the case of girls and language arts and foreign languages in the case of boys."

For generations, girls' schools have served students of many abilities, interests, talents and backgrounds. What unites these schools is a long-standing commitment to learning environments that place girls first and foremost. What sets them apart from other educational settings is an in-depth understanding of how girls learn and succeed.

According to Burch Ford, Head of Miss Porter's School and former President of the NCGS Board of Trustees:

"It is important that girls, while they are still growing physically, emotionally, socially, intellectually, and spiritually, be served in a context that encourages and supports their expression, however tentative and nascent. They need to have the opportunity, easily available not just hard-won, to risk self-expression as scholars, athletes, artists, and leaders, until their competence leads to the confidence not only to express themselves but also to comfortably sustain their perspectives when they are challenged by boys and men. That competence and confidence does not follow from insight or understanding alone, but can only develop from example of adult models, along with personal practice and experience."

At NCGS member schools, girls enjoy not just equal opportunity, but every opportunity. All the speakers, players, writers, singers, athletes, doers, and leaders are girls. Mentors and role models are not hard to find. There are no chilly classroom climates to endure, no subtle signs of second-class citizenship.

Professors Myra and David Sadker, the American University researchers quoted earlier, put it this way:

"When girls go to single-sex schools, they stop being the audience and become the players."

It is a frame of mind that puts girls' school alumnae at a competitive advantage when entering college. Robin Robertson, a former girls' school principal who later taught at the university level, says girls' school alumnae stand out in a crowd:

"As a college professor I could identify students from girls' schools with a 90 percent accuracy rate on the first day of class. They were the young women whose hands shot up in the air, who were not afraid to defend their positions, and who assumed that I would be interested in their perspective."

Single-sex education is gaining new prominence in the United States today. According to Harvard University researcher Dr. David Riesman,

"Girls' schools provide an environment that not only is good in and of itself, but that in its redefinition of competitiveness and collaboration, of autonomy and connectedness, presents a model that other schools do well to emulate."

NCGS member schools are educational leaders, not followers of trends, and have led the way for generations. They are incubators of innovation, where best practices for the teaching of girls draw upon decades of tradition while embracing the challenges and seizing the opportunities of the 21st century.

Girls' schools know that students who are held to the highest expectations, given access to the best resources, and who are led to understand that serious schooling is theirs for the taking -- these are students who do not turn back. This is exactly the culture of a girls' school, and time spent within one transforms girls. It is a sound investment for life.

Contents:
» What the Research Shows
» Gender & the Brain: The Difference Is In the Details
» The Effect of School Setting on Career Aspirations
» 10 Things That Make Girls' Schools Unique

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Learn more:
» Fordham Law Journal: The Difference in Girl-Centered Education
» Alumnae Profile: Achievement, Leadership & Success
» Trends Snapshot