Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Friday, April 25, 2008
Fireworks over gender and education
Leonard Sax and Lise Eliot
Leonard Sax is an evangelist for single gender schools. Citing a slew of scientific studies he references in two books he has written on the subject of gender and learning, he began an association to push for more all-boys and all-girls schools and travels the country promoting the cause.
He’s even been to Dayton to provide technicial assistance and teacher training in the development of the school district’s two gender-specific schools.
But lately, he’s been under fire. And he’s gotten a little hot under the collar.
Last month, the New York Times wrote a long magazine piece challenging the science Sax cites in his books to justify instructional changes based on gender differences. Sax, to put it mildly, did not like the article. His rebuttal can be found here.
On Friday, the Education Writers Association paired Sax with neuroscientist Lise Eliot to debate the science of gender differences. From the start both were testy. The exchanges between the two got heated. And more than once I thought one or the other might storm out of the room.
But the discussion was very interesting.
Sax argues that there are many developmental differences between boys and girls that lead to wide gaps in skill proficiency at young ages. The differences almost completely disappear by early adulthood, he says, but teachers should be trained to recognize the differences and adapt their instruction to account for them.
For a good example of Sax’s argument, read this story I wrote when he visited Dayton in 2005.
But Eliot argued the differences that Sax describes are very small. So small, she said, that it is doubtful that changes to instruction will have much impact on learning. Eliot said she fears that the single gender movement could reinforce old stereotypes about truck-loving boys vs. doll-playing girls.
Some examples of her argument:
—It is well known that girls tend to learn to speak earlier than boys. But Eliot said studies show that, on average, a girl will begin speaking only a month before a boy and once they begin speaking both grow vocabulary at a very fast rate with only minor differences between them.
—The biggest difference between males and females is physical size. Men on average are six inches taller then women. Much has been made of the fact that men had larger brains than women, she said. But, in fact, men also have bigger hearts and other organs. The differences overall are explained by the overall size difference between men and women.
—There are differences between boys and girls in many areas, she said. Some popularly cited ones include the types of toys they prefer, aggression, verbal fluency, math proficiency, social cognition and moral reasoning. But again, Eliot said the cumulative studies show a huge overlap in skill proficiency in those areas. The statistical difference between boys and girls on those fronts, she said, are very small.
—Consider math. Another popularly cited statistic comes from a 1981 study that showed seventh grade boys scored above 700 when given the SAT outpaced seventh grade girls with the same high scores by 14 to 1. But Eliot said the study continued over time and today the ratio is only 2.8 to 1 in favor of boys.
Eliot’s bottom line argument is that men are not from Mars and women are not from Venus, as the popular book title claims. A better analogy, she said, was “Men are from North Dakota, women are from South Dakota.” In other words, they are more alike than different.
But then she went on to argue, among other things, that single sex education can at best be a band-aid solution, that education impacts really cannot be scientifically studied and that test score gains in single gender schools are likely the result of a “placebo” effect resulting from excitement around a new educational program.
Sax said Eliot apparently has not read studies on the impact of single gender education and didn’t know what she was talking about. He also blasted the Times article, saying it was inaccurate and unfairly tried to portray the debate over gender-based instruction as a political fight between liberals and conservatives.
I’d love to hear from readers that either work at Dayton’s two single-gender schools or have kids attending those schools. If that’s you, give us your reaction in the comments.
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