Chapter 7 The Issue of Gender in Elementary and Secondary Education

During colonial times in New England, schools were for male students only; yet 50 years after the American Revolution coeducation had become the norm in public elementary education. This change emerged gradually and with little public discussion. In rural communities most parents did not think it worth the prohibitive cost to educate boys and girls separately, and the one-room, coeducational school district was typical, viewed as a natural extension of male and female participation in the family and church (Hansot & Tyack, 1988). In contrast to the rural one-room school, the high schools of the nation's urban areas were larger, more bureaucratic, and structurally further re-moved from the model of the family. In these schools, coeducation gen-erated more controversy; parents and educators worried not only about the sexual involvement from such close contact during adolescence, but also about the need to prepare boys and girls for their different roles in the largely segregated world of work. In response to such concerns, the curriculum was consciously designed to meet the "different needs " of female and male students. For example, girls were required to take courses in homemaking to prepare them for their designated roles as wive