'A Revolution now absorbed': Girls in former Boys' Schools

A number of elite boys’ schools in England have admitted girls for over 30 years, some thereby becoming mixed schools. In other schools, girls remain a very small minority. This paper focuses upon prospectuses from the latter type of school, arguing that prospectuses are particularly valuable as a basis for judging schools’ policies and practices in their own terms. The researchers ask questions about the nature of this form of ‘co-education’, particularly as it affects girls’ educational and social opportunities. On balance, the prospectuses paint a picture of boys’ schools which happen to have girls in them rather than of schools whose policies and practices have become genuinely co-educational