The All-Girl Advantage
The single-gender environment at Resurrection encourages girls to develop self-assurance, express themselves confidently, and assume significant leadership roles and responsibilities. In comparison to co-educated young women, research shows that female graduates of single gender high schools demonstrate enhanced levels of engagement in academics and civic issues, increased skill in public speaking, greater mathematical ability and competence in the use of technology, pronounced interest in engineering careers, higher participation in extracurricular activities, and confident expression in the visual and performing arts.
- Higher Academic Achievement
- More Individual Attention
- Success in math, science and technology
- Reduced Gender Stereotypes
- Greater Leadership Opportunities
Girls who attend single gender schools spend more time studying and doing homework, are more likely to give or receive tutoring, and are more likely to study in a group or with friends. Graduates of all-girl schools surpass their co-ed peers in reading, writing, and science and perform better than girls in co-ed schools on standardized tests.
The culture of an all-girls school allows girls to display their intelligence, take risks and develop confidence in their own areas of strength. Girls who attend single-gender schools report that they are more confident about speaking, tackling problems, and expressing their ideas and had superior academic achievement, more confidence in their abilities and more positive attitudes toward academics. Researchers also found that in co-ed schools, girls are routinely called on less, receive less feedback and are less confident than boys.
Girls who attend single gender schools report enjoying math more, found math less difficult, had significantly more positive attitudes toward science in general, and physics and chemistry in particular. “Girls in girls-only schools were about 40% more likely to take advanced science courses than were girls of comparable ability at co-ed schools.” Researchers also found that girls from single-gender schools pursue careers in math, science, and technology four times more often than do girls from co-ed schools.
Girls who attend single gender schools are more likely to take classes outside of their normal comfort zone and are more willing to take educational risks. Studies found that girls at single-gender schools had less stereotyped ideas about what women can and cannot do. Studies found that graduates of single-gender schools were more likely to go on to prestigious colleges and were more likely to aspire to graduate school or professional school. In fact, researchers found that both boys and girls have more educational opportunities when they attend a single-gender school.
Source: Women Graduates of Single-Sex and Coeducational High Schools: Differences in their Characteristics and the Transition to College
(L.J. Sax, E. Arms, M. Woodruff, T. Riggers and K. Eagan)