Detecting and Accounting for Gender Differences in Mixed‐sex and Single‐sex Groupings in Science Lessons

Abstract

This paper reports data from observations conducted in Year 5 classrooms, during lessons in which the students were working on an electricity topic. Twenty classes participated in the study. The 20 teachers involved were selected as ten pairs, matched for sex, educational background and teaching experience. All the teachers received special help to increase their skills and confidence in teaching about electricity. Half the teachers (the ‘experimental group') were also alerted to the possibilities of sexism in the physical sciences.

For science activities the students worked in small groups of two or three. In the classes of the ‘experimental group’ teachers, the same pattern of activity was found for boys and girls in mixed‐sex and single‐sex groups. This pattern was also found in single‐sex groups in the ‘control group’ classes. Mixed‐sex groups in the ‘control group’ classes however, were characterised by a different pattern of activity involving lower participation rates for girls than for boys.

The results of this study indicate that single‐sex grouping may be beneficial to girls’ science education in cases where teachers have a low level of awareness and skills in relation to creating and maintaining a non‐sexist learning environment.