single sex vs mixed schools

Secondary schools are already proportionately non Catholic to the relative population. Only about 48% are still Catholic. Only a third are single sex. The Left wants to take away all control that parents still have. Labour Education spokesman aodhán ó ríordáin recently said on RTE Drive time 'equality is more important than choice'. That is where we are at. They are coming from your kids

One thing is certain, amalgamation reduces parental choice.

The choice of school is a complex issue. Academic performance is just one of many considerations and I think social development may be the most significant factor at second-level (I don’t mean epic partying 😎) . Ultimately, it is about finding the best fit for the individual student which may be a single-sex school (especially during puberty). Parents are the best judges (when they listen to their kids).

The amalgamated school maybe more than the sum of its parts though that is far from certain but in many cases the nearest remaining alternative is in another town. Is amalgamation adding to the chaos in the school transport system?

Mixed and local for me. Life is mixed. Social skills, having friends of both sexes, knowing people in your own locality from all backgrounds. I went to a mixed school. Loved it. Taught in two girls schools, not a fan. Too much stress, bullying, lots of make up, seemed way more obbsessed with boys. On in a citty and one in large town. The school in large town was nicer. Other schools I’ve taught in are mixed. Students are more relaxed, comfortable, less stressed and lovely kids. All have been in villages. Have met plenty of adults who regret being in single sex schools - not having the opportunity to mix.

Brianna Parkins has a change of heart about single-sex schools.

She went to a girls-only school in Australia and wanted to send her (hypothetical future) daughter to one but then she saw men who didn't want an elite boys-only school to go co-ed. I suspect she would have had the opposite reaction if she met women trying to stop a girls-only school going co-ed. She compares the bogus Limerick study with an Australian study which got the opposite results and calls this "mixed results". In fact, there is a vast library of contradictory studies on this topic which prove one thing beyond question - social "science" is a creature of politics and researchers never stop torturing the data until it yields the "right" result.

Anyhow, the campaign to abolish single-sex schools is gathering pace. It has been decades since a new single-sex school was approved. Parents are gradually coming to favour single-sex schools, mainly for convenience but also no doubt influenced by bogus research. The new admission rules will reduce the numbers of parents who attended the children's schools i.e. those who have any idea whether the school's traditions are worth preserving.

There are currently 2,895 mixed national schools with just 132 boys national schools and 96 girls national schools remaining.

There are 97 boys post-primary schools and 124 girls post-primary schools remaining, with 514 mixed post-primary schools. At this rate, 10 years from now there will be only be around 50 single-sex post-primary schools left and the clear advantage that girls hold over boys in the Leaving Cert will have eroded. The most elite schools will remain single-sex and their powerful "Old Boy" and "Old Girl" networks will be ever more exposed. Then parents will start clamouring for single-sex schools, especially for those who identify as girls.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/education/2024/01/22/number-of-schools-switching-from-single-sex-to-co-ed-increases-significantly/

Controls are a very standard part of science. It's one of the first concepts you teach a child learning science. Comparing a mixed inner city DEIS to Alex or Mount Anvil will indeed lead to better raw scores.....quelle surprise! We control so data has context and meaning. Whatever your bias is for, disparaging research for using the scientific method and ensuring you are not comparing apples and oranges shouldn't be the basis of your argument.

The Limerick study, to be fair, is one of the better studies with a strong statistical underpining you often don't get in Irish research contexts. It's an open source journal so you can look at the raw stats yourself if your so inclined.

I found the urban/rural split, the staff shortage numbers and the ratios to be a far more interesting part of the study to be honest. We know these are real and tangible indicators of the quality of education students receive. That, and the teaching material quality being so biased towards single sex, boys schools

I think that's a real issue that mixed schools help with, the lack of those subjects in girls schools a real pity with how useful even JC engineering or material technology can be in your every day life. Same with subjects like Home Ec in boys schools, with some exceptions. The new schools, when the buildings are finally built, are amazing, and they do have a wide selection of specialist rooms with the initial funding making them modern, pity we don't just do that as the bare minimum.

But yeah, I think academic student pushed from stable homes, who grew up with a healthy respect for themselves and their futures will generally do well anywhere. There are girls schools down the country where boys might even come in senior cycle as they'd be considered "good schools".

I think most people want their kids to be in a good, well run school with a wide curricular, good facilities, reasonable class sizes and the option of extra curriculars. Our energy should really be focused on the funding and allocation inequality.

They absolutly do in the methods,and give a clear description of how these variables were used and what level or weight on control was given and how they constructed the linear regression models along with other methodologies they utilised with references to where they have been used before and how they are in line with internationally accepted standards.

I assume we all agree that socioeconomic background and student-staff ratio have a measurable effect on outcome. They have included the big hitters from the research contexts they are working in. If I was studying cystic fibrosis I might include lung capacity as a variable for life expectancy, in a research context I wouldn't need to explain why to those reading the journal article in the "Journal of Lung Health" or such why I was including that, it's evident.

You can argue or not ague for single sex schools but this is one of the few purposeful bits of research I've seen come out about Irish Education in a long time, willfully misunderstanding it does no one any favours. There are bit for the methodologies I could maybe half take an issue with but it's not a hatchet job and there are plenty of those knocking around. It also misses some of the nuance thrown up by it that will and do cause far greater inequalities in our country than whether Jack sits beside Mary or John in Physics

"specific calculations to obtain reliable standard errors. Jerrim et al. (2017) outlines some of the problems derived from said structure and how to overcome them. As suggested by them, we employ the REPEST command within STATA, developed by Avvisati and Keslair (2014), to analyse the data. REPEST carries out estimations using the balanced repeated replicate weights method proposed by the OECD (2009), and is suitable for use with plausible values, such that the average value of the estimations is obtained and the imputation error is incorporated into the variance of the estimated parameter. This allows us to run models such as standard linear regressions that are technically robust and meet the criteria of the usual OECD studies. When considering the relationship between performance and single-sex schooling, selection bias is a key issue. Thus, our models control for a range of observable socioeconomic and school-level factors likely to be correlated with performance in PISA, and attending a single-sex school, such as those outlined in Table 1. Given this, to examine our relationship of interest we estimate three separate standard linear regressions"

In the same way we understand why we measure cholesterol in heart studies, we know we should control for socio economic class in eduction studies! The OECD employ fairly good statisticians.

What precisely are your issues with the controls? Which ones specifically are you quereing or is it the statistical analysis you have and issue with?

The challenge with this debate for me is the snobbery it comes with - inevitably, mixed is the way forward, single sex is backwards, thats the way it is in the EU, what the hell is wrong with this country type narrative.

As the Irish Times letter states - be respectful of choice. (A lot of people are all for choice, when it suits them).

And the other thing is, in my experience in Dublin anyway, mixed sex schools are choices that are predominantly available to the middle classes. (Hello Educate Together, yes I am looking at you!!).

People that send their kids to co-ed schools are privileged to have that option, a lot of people dont have that option.

So please dont double down by telling everyone what a great parental choice you have made. (Which would be a very Irish Times opinion columnist thing to do).

We can't manage or build extensions to the schools we have.

There are a lot of options which could benefit the social development of students from single-sex schools and these schools should be encouraged to experiment in their particular circumstances (e.g. if girls-only and boys-only schools are adjacent to each other) but the Minister and the Department have shown zero interest in anything other than co-ed integration because the welfare of students is not the priority.

Lol add to the list the school holidays should be four weeks which was on newstalk last week.

Another all-girls school will admit boys next year and the media are full of congratulations.

In the Indo, Tanya Sweeney’s launches her praise with the baseless claim that

one must suspect [this] is heartening news for its 250-odd female pupils

One must establish facts, not make baseless assumptions, when writing for a serious newspaper but Tanya knows she can claim anything she likes so long as she is supporting the “right” side. Tanya should read her own report which says this decision was made

after consultation with local primary schools, parents and the school’s board

https://www.independent.ie/life/family/parenting/the-case-for-mixed-education-we-dont-separate-men-and-women-in-adult-life-so-why-do-it-in-school/a44765121.html An eagle-eyed, fearless journalist like Tanya will have spotted a missing group of stakeholders - the 250 girls in the school. But Tanya can read their little girl minds. Or maybe she’s heard about the ESRI report that all the kids want Co-Ed. You won’t be amazed to know that every few students in Co-Ed schools want to get rid of half their classmates. What I can’t find is the relevant fact in this case - how many girls in a single-sex school are keen to share their class rooms with boys.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/most-secondary-school-students-prefer-mixed-sex-education-says-esri-report/a1487675325.html

Their parents reportedly want to prepare the girls for the real world and I’m all for parental choice but why not send their daughters to one of the many mixed-schools in the area?. Could it be that their parents know this is an excellent school but they are just tired of ferrying their brothers to a different school miles away? Although no one doubts the calibre of this school, no one says: if it ain’t broke, because the Department are confident that this dramatic change will in no way lessen this school’s standards.

And Tanya thinks she has the clinching argument- prepare the young for the adult world where men and women mix freely. Of course, Tanya will be writing next week that we must keep teenagers always from smart phones and social media. Or the myriad other ways in which we give special treatment to our young.

I wouldn't presume that pupils in a single sec school are the biggest cohort in favour of it.

Is there any data on this?

Pure smear. Nothing to back it up.