LEARNING AND SEX: A Report on the Analysis of Single Sex Sections of First Year Seminars at CSB/SJU, 2014-15

Considering that as recently as 2014, school girls Chibok, Nigeria were abducted by Boko Haram, a Muslim fundamentalist terrorist group, one has to wonder about the correlation between the access to education, equality, safety, and opportunity. The College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University are private Catholic liberal arts institutions whose students enroll in single-sex institutions, but are provided co-educational learning experiences in the classroom. This hybrid structure permits the exploration multiple aspects of a gendered education. Given the opportunity this structure offers, the researchers of this project aim to study the First Year Seminar (FYS) experiences of student enrolled in single-sex FYS section in the 2014-15 academic year. By reviewing direct (essays) and indirect (focus group discussions) sources for assessment from sex-segregated FYS classes this project attempts to develop a better understanding of the influence of the learner’s sex in their learning experience