Defending all-male education: a new cultural moment for a renewed debate.

• Author: Webb, Stephen H.

Although all-female schools still prosper and are defended by members of the academic elite, (1) an all-male college has become a near-extinct species. (2) Many people are surprised such a creature still exists. All-male colleges strike many as vestiges of male privilege. (3) They evoke the traditional bastions of power that precluded women from advancing in public life. (4) Single-sex education is not for everyone, but if our educational system is to be truly pluralistic, such an education should be an option. Single-sex education for both genders can be a constructive way to address problems plaguing not only education but the culture as a whole. (5)

Indeed, the tide that swept away single sex education for men is now turning. (6) To understand why, today's emphasis on co-education should be placed in a historical context. The war in Vietnam and racism in the states stirred a storm of social upheaval defying traditional forms of authority. (7) All-male colleges were seen as an affront to egalitarian politics and democratic progress. (8)

When I joined the Wabash College faculty in 1987, the school was suffering an identity crisis. One of the last all-male liberal arts colleges, (9) Wabash acted like its single sex status was an accidental feature of the campus, something hardly worth noting.

The faculty could not accept Wabash for what it was. Dedicated to progress and democracy, professors were embarrassed and angry about the lack of women in the classroom. While the trustees and alumni were loyal to the character of the college, the faculty assaulted the very concept of single-sex education with the single-minded rhetoric they learned in the sixties. They framed the debate in terms of rights for the marginalized, rather than respect for differences. Men were already privileged in our society, they argued, so why should men have opportunities unavailable to women? Wabash was a good school that should be open to everybody. Anything less than equal access was blatant discrimination.

Nowadays, the culture, rather than the college, has radically changed. Wabash is taking advantage of two new movements ushering in a new excitement about single-sex education.

The first movement challenges structures of authority that legislate uniformity in education. Reformers now talk of school choice and work to decenter federal control over education. (10) This new emphasis on pluralism and local control is permitting educators to reconsider distinctive educational options that serve some students without being mandatory for all. (11) Equal educational opportunities do not necessitate homogenous educational experiences. If the American genius abides in experimental openness, its limit resides in a tendency toward conformity and uniformity. Public policy makers are sometimes too anxious that everyone be treated exactly the same way.

The second cultural movement leading to a renewal of single-sex education is the reconsideration of the role of gender in education. A concern for the well being of girls started it all. Mary Piper's book, Reviving Ophelia, (12) sparked a crusade against the gender gap separating the achievements of girls from those of boys. (13) Piper's alarming book depicted a cultural meltdown in the social neglect of girls. Girls can too quickly subordinate themselves to boys at a certain age, and this can lead to serious problems, both socially and academically. According to Piper and her followers, this subservience was not the result of biology but of a toxic educational environment. (14) For example, Peggy Orenstein explains that girls educated in a coed environment display a drop in confidence as well as achievement. (15) She offers the picture of a girl afraid to raise her hand in class, letting her insecurities affect her education. (16) Girls face problems in school that boys do not, especially sexual harassment. (17) The way in which girls cultivate self-esteem and manifest vulnerability also differs remarkably from that of boys. Nevertheless, the war to save girls was frequently fought as a war against boys. (18) It eventually became apparent that boys and girls had both similar and different problems during their early school years. (19) While girls have the problem of being discouraged from pursuing "unfeminine" intellectual pursuits, (20) boys are more likely to disrupt their own education. (21) Concern about one sex, of course, does not preclude concern for the other. Prescribing all-female schools as a solution for girls' educational problems does not preclude all-male schools as a solution for boys. Both kinds of schools can happily co-exist and, indeed, must stand or fall together.

The need for single-sex education hinges on the contested argument that some differences between girls and boys relate to their ability to learn. Feminists have argued that girls learn differently than boys. (22) Over time, educators realized it was not possible to discuss the distinctive traits of female learning without acknowledging that boys too have their distinctive patterns of development. (23) Educators are now more willing to reevaluate all-male education. Michael Gurian, a prominent therapist and educator, has explored the biological and neurological differences between boys and girls without pitting one gender against the other. (24) When the testosterone-driven behavior of boys is suppressed--rather than channeled into appropriate activities--biology will fight its way to the surface with unpleasant results. (25) Both boys and girls need heroes to admire and communities to join, but the structure of their socialization takes different forms. Boys can be especially tribal as they enter adolescence, and their physical development cries out for...