From ‘they’ to ‘Faezeh’: an action research study of a co-educational language class

ABSTRACT

The present action-research study explored the experience of a co-educational class in a context where it was a total educational novelty. Generating data from a number of sources before, during, and after the course, the study portrays how the participants experienced initial challenges followed by mutual adaptability toward the end of the course. The findings of the study indicate how the experience has been culturally emancipatory with regard to bringing about reorientations in the learners’ perceptions about the other gender. Particularly, the findings showed that the learners gradually developed a perceptual understanding regarding the social status of the other gender, mediated by the opportunities provided during the course that facilitated developing such an understanding. The study also demonstrates that the experience of this action-research study brought about relevant changes in the policies of the school and its transformational potentials for the participating learners’ future careers.

KEYWORDS:

• Single-sex education
• co-education
• teacher perceptions
• learner perceptions
• Iranian EFL context

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.