Same, different, equal - Rosemary C. Salomone

An assessment of the educational and legal issues surrounding single-sex education.;Although co-education has been the norm within private and public schools since the 1970s, single-sex education has staged a comeback in recent years as a means of addressing the academic and social problems faced by some students. Single-sex education raises controversy on ideological grounds, and in 1996 the US Supreme Court struck down the all-male admissions policy at the Virginia Military Institute in a decision that has cast a legal cloud over public initiatives. In this work, Rosemary Salomone offers a reasoned educational and legal argument supporting single-sex education as an alternative to co-education, particularly in the case of disadvantaged minority students.;Salomone examines the history of women's education and exclusion, philosophical and psychological theories of sameness and difference, findings on educational achievement and performance, the research evidence on single-sex schooling, and the legal questions that have arisen. Seeking to correct many of the misconceptions about single-sex education, she argues that it is a viable option and that the road to gender equality should be paved with diverse educational opportunities for all students, regardless of race, class or gender.