Introduction

            Being masculine and feminine is an essential trait of the person. Men and women have different ways of living their equal personal dignity: this is a key factor in education. Each person is born man or woman, each with a distinct pace of personal development and learning. Education should not ignore the differences; it should always take them into account. The school has to help each student cultivate the qualities proper to his/her way of being.

            During their secondary education, boys are more impulsive, less orderly and have greater difficulty in concentrating on their studies and in showing their emotions. In contrast, the girls at that age are orderly, punctual and constant in work and more importantly, show their emotions with much facility.

            In adolescence, the way boys show their affectivity is very different from the way girls do. In girls, the basis of the unfolding of their feminine affectivity is characterized by refinement, attention to details and the emphasis given to the emotions. In boys, on the other hand, affective life is marked by some traits of toughness, insensibility and rudeness. At this stage, the affective side of their personality is disregarded, considering it as trivial. It should not be concluded, however, that there is no place for anything else in the masculine affective life except for violence. There is also a space for tenderness in men’s affectivity but at adolescence, it is still hidden and it does not strain to show itself. Masculine tenderness appears later and shows itself in a way different from the way feminine tenderness is manifested. It comes after the emerging violence and fearlessness that characterize the expression of emotions in these early periods of life. The opposite happens in girls: feminine tenderness appears first, but later on, violence may find expressions in words and deeds[1]

            Only after adolescence, when the masculine or feminine personal identity has been adequately established, and with more maturity and experience in life, does the person learn to integrate better all the elements necessary in  interpersonal relationship.

            Boys have better perception of space and the place occupied by things, while girls surpass boys in tasks requiring mastery of language. Boys seem to surpass girls in abstract reasoning, in conceptualizing long-term plans, in physical strength and speed. Girls are better in artistic sensibilities, in knowing people, refinement in social dealings, attention to details and in adapting. It is clear that women concentrate better than men could, and they mature faster, intellectually speaking.

            According to Gilligan[2] women differ from men in their basic orientation in life. He considers that some well-known theories about evolutional psychology belittles the feminine orientation: women are oriented towards human relations, refinement in dealings and in commitment, while men are oriented more towards abstract thinking, personal achievements and the subordination of relationships to other objectives.

            In education, it would be “unfair” to nature to turn a blind eye to these differences. There are differences that cannot be subsumed because the dignity of the person demands that they be respected. To respect someone means to consider differences, seeing what characterizes each person; the indifferent person goes on without stopping to consider reality and its content.

Is Coeducation a Non-debatable System?

Coeducation is a pedagogical method that has spread, from the 1960’s in the educational systems of Western countries. Its acceptance has been the result of proposals, with strong ideological content, that presented mixed education as a non-negotiable demand without any need for proofs and experimental studies; nor did it have to give an account to evolutional psychology — and all that in the name of equality. More than due to economic reasons—coeducation imposed in depopulated rural areas in order to maximize the use of resources—coeducation is presented as a need for boys and girls to receive identical treatment in school even during those ages most crucial to their personal development, disregarding differences of physical constitution, maturity and psychological evolution between girls and boys.  At times, these are not admitted as natural dispositions (diverse ways of being) but  more as cultural patterns.

In the International Congress on Women that the UN organized in Beijing (1995), the dichotomy between sex and gender, already conceptually and linguistically coined since many years back, was made popular. Sex appears as referring to the strictly biological dimension while gender is related to the cultural roles of the feminine (maternity, upbringing of children, home care) and the masculine (work outside the house and family provider). For some people, equality means overcoming gender biases.

Analogously, in some sectors of Western culture there has been a growing mentality that links sex more to culture than to nature, and considers sexual inclination as a free personal option against nature.  Some consider being man not as coming from nature but as freedom and culture, such that admitting the difference between men and women as a relevant natural datum for the education of the person would be discriminatory.

Consequently, what they campaign for is that schools achieve equality through equal treatment of boys and girls even at the cost of neglecting or intentionally ignoring their natural differences.  They do not admit these differences as natural but as cultural models of gender that in the past has been a handicap for the emancipation of women and that should be overcome now.

Granted that between woman and man there is a radical similarity in their humanity and, therefore, equal dignity, there is also a radical difference in the feminine and masculine way of being. It seems just to give a differentiated treatment to what nature itself distinguished so that in the best possible way, the potentialities proper to man and to woman would be developed in accord with their special psychological, physical and personal characteristics.

The differences between boys and girls belong to the natural biological order and affect their personal development and behavior. According to some studies, the person has an identity that is determined towards the sixth week of gestation as a result of the action of a large amount of hormones that orient differently the formation of the masculine and the feminine brain. The masculine and the feminine condition is already present long before birth and it affects the whole person –attitudes, aptitudes, responses, sentiments, priorities, etc.-, and not only sexuality.

These gender differences are firm psychological facts that do not change according to the predominant thinking of the times. But through the years there are more findings pointing out the difficulties coeducation faces in providing adequate attention to the specific educational needs of the adolescent boys and girls, and for the personal development of the qualities of masculinity and femininity that cannot be ignored.

It is paradoxical that in our days big sectors of society maintain the unexamined premises that facilitated the widespread imposition of coeducation, when in reality there are few available scientific studies about its effects. Besides, there seems to be a certain tendency to ignore, hide or mask some results such that it is not easy to establish trustworthy conclusions. For decades, coeducation schools have been considered as the most apt environment to assure the equality between the sexes, but education studies put such claim into question. Even some sectors of feminism, responsible since the 1970’s for the adoption of coeducation to attain equality of the sexes, now defend, especially in Germany and in the US, separate school for girls as the best means to guarantee the equality of opportunities and the emancipation of women.

A recent study[3] shows that in France, coeducation has failed to assure the equality of the sexes and of opportunities such that, after three decades of widespread coeducation, there are more voices raised questioning its supposed advantages. Countries like France, England, Australia, the US, Sweden, Germany or Austria began questioning the “false dogma of coeducation.”

The increase of the problems of discipline and absenteeism, the high price of failure in school and the growing violence in education centers ask for solutions that must be sought in a coordinated change of the educational system so that it may respond more sufficiently to the challenge of educating the students as free persons, in accordance with the demands of human dignity and attentive to their natural diversity. In this sense, single-sex education presents sure advantages and it is not more expensive than coeducation nor does it require duplicating investments except in rare cases where the student population is not enough to fill the classrooms.

The defence of the dignity of women and of the equality between men and women is not necessarily determined by a specific educational system, but it can be promoted both by coeducation and in single-sex education. These are values that will be better promoted by the school that counts on an educational plan where these ideals are upheld, has a line up of teachers to impart them and offer the students effective pedagogical and formative means.[4]

Single-sex education offers better possibilities for the academic performance of the students

            The single-sex school offers better possibilities for the academic performance of its students because the development in boys and girls take on different speeds. Girls mature biologically and psychologically earlier than boys do, and this fact usually has a great impact on their academic performance. Normally, until they are 16 years old, girls have better intellectual performance than boys. The cognitive development of boys, in infancy and in adolescence, is slower and more awkward, even though much later their intellectual path may be of wider scope and may even reach high levels.

            In a coeducational system, even if the difference in personal maturity could be a stimulus in some cases, it usually hinders the academic performance of some boys in relation to what their girl classmates achieve. Normally, in classrooms of boys and girls between the 12 and 16 years of age, the girls occupy the first seats, and that’s why many boys lower their level of performance because they do not want to be compared with the girls. The boys lag behind in verbal ability (language, literature and grammar) and suffer problems of learning and discipline. Girls have better comprehension, are better at explaining themselves and in verbalizing the emotional aspects of a relationship. Boys have more vitality. They are more restless than the girls, and it is hard for them to pay attention for a long period of time. They mature more slowly and they require more time to learn how to control their impulses.

            Some authors[5] have concluded that girls have better results in subjects that are traditionally masculine when they are alone. In separate classes, girls usually find greater facility to blossom in scientific and technical subjects and in mathematics, subjects where boys are traditionally considered to perform better. Most educators now say that coeducation has been reduced, for curricular reasons, to “a teaching for boys that is also given to girls”. This has led some coeducation schools to set up separate classrooms according to sex for some subjects, with good results.

            Some think that coeducation would help stimulate scholastic competence. The boys will imitate the diligence, dedication, order, constancy and the intuition of the girls, while the girls in turn will acquire greater clarity in judgment and expression. But this has not happened, largely due to unavoidable differences in cognitive styles, very distinct among boys and girls. There are strong neurobiological factors that justify speaking clearly about the masculine and the feminine ways of learning and of knowing—a distinction that can only be ignored at the cost of producing confusion. The cognition of girls is more emotional and synthetic, more complete, even though less analytical.

            In some cases, these differences lead to negative consequences that could probably have been avoided in an educational context that respects the different process of development and maturation of one and the other.[6] That is why, in the past years, many expert voices[7] have denounced the failure of coeducation, especially for male students, who have a higher percentage of academic failure in comparison with the female students. Coeducational centers are presenting more problems like lack of motivation, frustration, anxiety, aggressive behavior, violence, drugs, leaving home, etc.

            On the contrary, there are many studies showing that students in schools of single-sex education obtain better academic results.[8] A detailed study made by F. A. Mael[9] concludes that sex-differentiated schooling produced positive academic results both for girls and for boys. Bryk, Lee and Holland[10] assured that the help given by single-sex schools has positive effects in academic output. It is not easy to determine exactly the influence of this help in school performance because there are other important variables that must be considered like the sociocultural level of the families, the quality of education in the school, the qualification and the level of aspirations of the teachers, etc., but there are data from various groups and countries showing better results obtained in single-sex schools.

            The Financial Times published in August the results of the Top Independent Schools in Great Britain. For the past 12 years, the 25 schools with the best results are single sex schools. The first coeducation school comes out number 26.

            The test results corresponding to the school year 2001-2002 of the General Certificate of Secondary School, done at the end of obligatory education, show that of the 20 best public and private schools in England and Wales, 13 are single-sex schools. In the case of public schools where 80% of the students go, 6 of the 10 best are not coeducation schools.

            In a study done by Lee and Bryk[11] from a sampling of 1,807 students from 75 high schools in the United States, the students from exclusive schools obtain better academic results and have higher professional ambitions. The effect among the girls is even better: they were spending more time in their homework and showed greater interest in literature and in mathematics.

            In the last Information on Secondary Schools in Ontario[12] made by the Frazer Institute, 10 of the 16 schools with the best academic records are exclusive schools.

            There are two studies worth mentioning because of the wide sampling studied and for their relevance:

                        — A study of the National Foundation for Educational Research of England, was commissioned to evaluate the effects of size and type of school on academic performance. It studied 3,000 high schools in England and a total of 370,000 male and female students. In its finding,[13] published in July 2002, it shows that the academic performance of boys and girls in single-sex public high schools were significantly better.

                        — In 2001, the Australian Council for Educational Research made[14] another study comparing results of exclusive schools and coed schools after monitoring the development of 270,000 students for 6 years. The report showed that the students of exclusive schools obtained scholastic results 5%-22% better than those in mixed schools. It also showed that in exclusive schools, the level of study was more demanding, the environment more pleasant and the behavior of students better.

Personalized Education: Taking Diversity into consideration and Respecting Differences
 

To form each person adequately according to his own identity is  good for the person and society. Men and women possess anthropological and psychological qualities proper to them and specific education in exclusive schools favors the formation of men and women with defined identities called to complement each other. In this way, society is enriched through the specific contributions of man and  woman.

            Any policy for equal opportunities has to acknowledge both being feminine and being masculine as assets. In the family, the parents understand well that the education of a son or of a daughter has to be different because they perceive that the male and female differences are positive traits that must be strengthened. They take these differences without fuss and the different treatment towards their son or a daughter in no way implies inequality.

            In schools, equality demands ensuring that girls and boys benefit from the same programs and resources, and justice demands that their diversity is given attention. This could be guaranteed in exclusive as well as in coed schools, but exclusive schools have less difficulties in paying sufficient attention to personal traits and different speeds of maturation and learning.

            On the other hand, coed schools encounter very important hurdles in addressing the diversity of boys and girls. A classroom for boys and girls of the present emotional, behavioral and developmental variables are much more pronounced and unequal that those in a classroom for students of only one sex. Researchers maintain that exclusive schools aid the process of learning, help in understanding better the personality of the students and obtain  better academic results in general.

            The adolescent realizes that he is no longer a child and sees that in the future, his dependence on his parents or teachers will be less each time. He feels the need to write his own biography with his own style even if the consolidation of his personality is a complex process wherein the adult has a very important role to play. The adolescent needs space and distance as well as well-defined models. He realizes that his life will be the result of options that he can formulate, although, at the same time, he sees his immaturity to face the challenges.  This crisis situation of restlessness is observable in his conduct punctuated by jolting and sudden unexpected turns. He perceives everything and processes them in an emotional manner but without getting them right and unable to express them sufficiently well. Very much scattered, he needs time for serene and deep dialogue with his friends and with adults who act as role models for him.

            Young people need adults who do not limit themselves to giving information; they help them by being role models, accompanying them in their search for meaning in their life. Single-sex schools have the advantage of offering their students more persons of their own sex who can be models they can imitate. It is something positive[15] to be able to receive tutelage or orientation from persons of the same sex, with whom dialogue is more natural and deeper.

Answers to Some Objections:

(1) “In day to day life, boys and girls live together. Is it not better for young and adolescent boys to deal with girls in school and thus learn how to treat them with naturalness, respect and tolerance?”
 

The young relate without difficulty in the family and in other social circles outside the school. At the start of adolescence, there spontaneously arises the need for a sincere and deep friendship with other persons of the same sex. These relations of friendship with their companions of the same sex are important in establishing their sexual identity and personal maturity.  These are better developed in single-sex schools where adolescents do not feel the pressure of the close presence of persons of the opposite sex.

            Single-sex education in adolescence offers a space “free from distractions” and pressures, and this helps the person to mature. The nearness of persons of the opposite sex, so natural and constant in family and social life, usually becomes an important distracting factor that influences boys and girls because it obliges them to be conscious about appearing well to their classmates of the opposite sex, also in matters related to studies.

            On the contrary, in single sex schools, during the difficult years of adolescence, boys and girls can understand more easily the role of their own sex. The girls, in particular, develop better their own way of communicating and cooperating, and they enjoy their time dedicated to learning without the possible disturbance from boys. Since boys and girls live together in ordinary life, the school can be the privileged place to address differentially the development of masculine and feminine values and capacities, and respect for the other sex.

            Besides, putting the sexual dimension in the right place is vital for the balanced development of the personality in the adolescent, and that is why it is better to avoid disturbing the intellectual maturity and other aspects of the growth of the person. Even here, single-sex education has advantages over coeducation. Without hindering the relations of boys and girls in other places, the school finds less difficulty in helping its students to cultivate the qualities that are proper to them minus the complications that are usually present in a coeducational setting.

            Some researchers[16] point out that in coed schools, the boys understand the girls better but they lose respect for them. Others[17] say that adolescents, especially the boys, studying in coed schools suffer an increase in sexual tensions that they do not know how to control sufficiently at that age. In puberty, the formation of self-control is not helped by the immediate presence of the opposite sex. There is a fact that seems to be well proven: in places where coeducation is instituted, there are more teenage pregnancies. This fact does not only affect the adolescents and their families but also the teaching institution. Once coeducation has been chosen, it becomes very difficult to establish the limits and frontiers of behavior among the boys and the girls and, logically, the teachers cannot be police-teachers. What can be demanded from an educational institution is that it prevents promiscuity.[18]

            According to Brown,[19] in early and middle adolescence, boys are especially concerned about being accepted in a group, adapt themselves to it and acquire prestige in the sight of his peers. Group pressure can favor the early beginning of sexual relations with members of the opposite sex because of the conviction that “everybody does it.” In this immature context, boys try to strengthen the qualities necessary to be successful in other aspects of life while the girls perceive especially the importance of physical attractiveness and they give a lot of attention to their personal grooming, at times to the detriment of the other more important aspects for their personal maturity. Not to feel themselves attractive can provoke bouts of depression. This inequality in relationship made some authors[20] speak about sexual harassment as a kind of violence the girls are subjected to from infancy and it has psychological, emotional, physical and sexual manifestations.

            The negative effects on girls can be summarized in the words of a Canadian professor[21] who after long years of teaching in a coed school, said that he had observed in girls the harmful effects of anorexia, exaggerated concern for physical image, the lowering of their academic self-esteem when they compete with the boys and the insecurity that comes from always trying to please the others instead of satisfying their own legitimate needs.

            On the other hand, we have abundant data showing that at these ages, there are greater instances of psychopathological upheavals in boys than in girls — like behavioral problems, difficulties in learning, drug abuse, vandalism, hyperactivity, dyslexia, conflicts with rules, etc. Combined with their slower development, these could explain their lower school performance and could generate depression, lowering of self-esteem, negative self image and different manifestations of neurotic behavior: school absenteeism, running away from home, alcoholic and criminal conduct. It seems that coeducation poses more problems for boys than for girls.[22]

(2) “But it seems that coeducation helps boys and girls socialize, improve knowledge of each other and mutual acceptance, and that exclusive schools hinder these.”
 

In theory, coeducation would present advantages over single sex education as long as being together does not become conflictive. Some of these advantages include greater adaptability of boys and girls to the environment, increasing tolerance and greater understanding, free of stereotypes of the masculine and feminine. But to achieve these advantages, it would not be enough to establish coeducation as system of school organization. It is necessary to make sure that the teaching body provides a deep education for the integral formation of the person and his civic education. This becomes more difficult in coed schools where, aside from the difficulties inherent in teaching, the teacher must exert additional effort to consider the different states of maturity and development of the students, in an environment where tension is always greater than in homogenous classrooms.

            In spite of their greater activism during adolescence, boys usually require special attention in coed classrooms, and this gives girls the impression that they are marginalized and that their active participation in the class would be comparatively less than that of the boys. In contrast, single sex classes can reinforce the self-esteem of girls such that those with leadership qualities could lead in teamwork free from tensions that erupt when boys are around.

            For any professor with experience, it is obvious that the exercise of authority in mixed classrooms is usually more difficult than when boys and girls are taught separately. Coeducation affects academic discipline precisely because it adds a new element of conflict: that of discrepancies, struggles and contradictions among the students, provoked by the differences of gender existing among them.

            The behavior of boys and girls also change with coeducation. At times, girls transform companionship among themselves into competition, at times harsh in these ages, in the presence of boys. The first cases of calumnies, backbiting and biases may arise from there and these weaken and shake the friendship existing until then. On the other hand, boys show off their physical prowess and bodily attractiveness in the presence of girls, setting aside the noble intellectual competitiveness with them.

            Years ago, the hypothesis about the advantages of coeducation was sustained because it was thought that the earlier boys and girls live together, they would get to know each other better and adapt themselves better to each other. This hypothesis has not been verified. Rather it seems that, at least on some occasions, coeducation contributes to the increase of making stereotypes related to gender, conditioning both girls and boys such that they enclose themselves in their own group while their competitiveness grows.[23]

            It is not proven that the praxis of coeducation has contributed to the better understanding between the two sexes, and in no way has it been proven that by the fact of going to the same classroom boys and girls learned to respect each other in a better way.  The impression many teachers have is the opposite: the image of the other sex tends to be more positive among students in exclusive schools that those in coed schools.

            The interaction of boys and girls in coeducational schools is a given, while  mutual respect between the sexes has to be considered a value, i.e., an ideal. But the distance between the two is obvious in a coed setting, and it is neither more nor less in the context of single-sex education. To respect is to accept each one as he/she is, with his/her personal richness. The school should foster this respect with an educational program well based on nature and in the dignity of man without materialistic reductions. It should make it easy for the students to mature and learn self-mastery. This is education in human freedom.

            There are many studies that show the disadvantages that girls must bear in relation with boys, in spite of their better academic performance, because coeducational schools tend to maintain a predominantly masculine orientation. Boys take almost two thirds of the teachers’ attention (in many cases because of their disciplinary problems) at the expense of the girls who remain in the background and, consequently, participate less in class.

            As the girls mature faster, especially when they are between 12-14 years old, the boys usually perceive traumatically that while they remain boys, the girls of their age appear each time more like adult women. The asymmetry is also noticeable in psychology.  Girls are much more alert while the boys appear more awkward for almost everything.

            In this situation, boys usually react by becoming more withdrawn and introspective among the most timid, or by feeling the need to show themselves superior in other aspects. In coed schools, girls usually getting higher grades provoke a lowering of self-esteem in the boys and in some cases, the development of hard feelings and inferiority complex. To mask it, boys usually put on exaggerated behavior and a “macho” image.

            The behavior of boys in coed classes is usually more aggressive and egoistic than in separate classes because the boys tend to impress the girls, attracting the attention of the teachers with interruptions or lack of discipline. Girls bear the worst part of this undisciplined behavior. The academic failure of many boys makes it difficult for both sexes to be together. In not a few instances, boys take on violent “macho” behavior and reinforce sexual stereotypes for not being able to be at par with the girls academically. According to Nicole Mosconi,[24] professor of pedagogy (Paris-Nanterre), these stereotypes are reinforced in coed schools.

            Maccoby[25] analyzes the sexual differences from the evolutionary and social perspective. From infancy, there are already cultural differences between the two sexes due to their interests, especially to the desire of the boys to dominate and maintain their status. After this period of separation, comes a period of confrontations that later on gives way for a more sexualized or romantic relationship at a very early age. This is always interpreted in heterosexual terms by boys. According to this author, the lessening of contacts between the two sexes during infancy protects the girls from masculine domination and coercion.

In a social environment suffering from an exaggerated eroticism, it is more necessary than ever to have an institution where it is possible to deal calmly with the distinct formation of boys and girls considering the specific affective life of each sex. This necessity is more urgent in adolescence when the sexual tendencies are rapidly developing. If not properly guided, there is the danger that these tendencies could produce disorientation, frustrations and even psychological and behavioral deviations. The interpretation that is frequently given to the concept of “equality of opportunities without sexual discrimination” is usually slanted. Apart from the obvious meaning that this could have in so far as overcoming historical injustices done to women is concerned, the coeducational ideology has brought with it, in fact, an increase in promiscuity and has been the occasion of early sexual experimentations.

Evolutional psychology has verified a spontaneous tendency to form separate groups in games and in the first friendships. Exclusive schools have the advantage in the fact that they favor what is natural in these ages, and it can serve as the basis for a more natural approach to maturity. It does not seem that going against this tendency favors a better relationship as what has been observed in classes and proven by research.

(3) “Some think that when separating the students according to sex in schools, the discrimination of women is sanctioned and equality with men from infancy is denied. Hence, separate education is prejudicial to women and it perpetuates some cultural roles and some sexual stereotypes that must be overcome.”

            Recent research does not support these allegations. For example, Lee and Bryk[26] found out that women educated in exclusive schools for girls have less typical attitudes —when they are adults—as regards the roles of both sexes, and show very high self-esteem. In Europe, Cairns[27] in a study with 2,295 Irish students obtained similar results, and even while factoring in the socioeconomic level, found greater cognitive competence, better self-esteem and internal control among the students. On the other hand, Eder[28] showed in an ethnographic study that the presence of boys in the classroom makes friendship difficult among girls. The pioneering study of Carol Gillingan[29] about feminine psychology called attention to the inhibition that girls suffer in adolescence for fear of breaking relationships that they value. In other research works,[30] characteristics of exclusive schools for girls that stood out include leadership abilities, self-confidence and good relationships with teachers and classmates.

            On the contrary, the opinion that coeducational schools are the ones that foster sexual stereotypes is becoming widespread. Gender groups are usually very tight: plans to strengthen mixed groups for classroom works usually fail because boys want to be with boys, girls with girls.

            Experience shows also that tensions in coed schools have increased in recent years, especially in inner city schools that experience a marked increase in aggressive behavior of boys towards girls. Empirical evidence shows that girls are more affected, especially in early sexual experiences.

            It has not been proven that separate education fosters greater inequality between the sexes. Instead, the contrary has been proven, that is, in coed schools, the girls receive less attention than boys as indicated by the American Association of University Women[31] in a study with 1,331 girls. This lack of attention is expressed in many ways and the fault could be found in both the teachers and the male students.

            When girls are in an environment that is predominantly feminine (because there are no boys in the classroom and a high percentage of teachers are women), there is a non-verbal validation of feminine norms and of their consequences,” among them being the facility to show affection and compassion (Shmurak[32]).

            But coed schools are neither beneficial for boys. The psychiatrist Kraemer[33] has brought to light the concept of masculine vulnerability that until now seemed to have been applied recently only to women.  This concept explains the failure in learning that many boys suffer from in coed American schools. The need to communicate their emotional needs in an appropriate way and maintain relations of authentic friendship, combining their physical aggressiveness with their emotional vulnerability, is the object of study by neurologists.

            Pollard[34] summarizes the studies on the positive effects of single-sex schools for girls in three points:

                        — most studies suggest that single-sex schools are useful for girls because it gives them a comfortable place to learn and explore the world;

                        — they provide the girls the opportunity to consider topics like sexual identity and the variety of roles they can assume in the real world;

                        — they can be especially useful for girls in the evolutional level of adolescence.

One can conclude from what was mentioned above that coeducation is less apt to respect some specific needs of the feminine and the masculine ways of being. That is why, it is necessary not to confuse equality with uniformity in educational treatment. An authentic equality of opportunities demands a differentiated education, attentive to each particular case to the different modes of learning and the different degrees of maturity in each academic period so as not to avoid egalitarianism.

(4) “The essential objective of the school is to prepare students  for a mixed social life”

            The defenders of coeducation point out that it is necessary to stress more the psycho-affective dimension than the intellectual dimension of the development of the person: some presuppose the primordial importance of affectivity and social interaction at the cost of little attention given to the development of theoretical and practical intelligence. Moreover, it seems that the dynamics of adolescent affective behavior reinforces the thesis that the cognitive dimension should be in the second place. In effect, during puberty, sexual identity is getting formed and the students behave by exaggerating the characteristics proper to their own sex, by their own immaturity and insecurity. Few boys will have the generosity, or few girls the daring, to challenge their own complexes and expos