Learning Together: A History of Coeducation in American Public Schools

In this book the authors explore the factors that have shaped coeducation since its origins. The text is accompanied by contemporary photographs and photo-essays that add evidence about gender in classrooms. They address a number of provocative questions. Why did Americans choose to educate boys and girls together at the very time they were creating separate spheres for adult men and women? How did beliefs about the similarities and differences of boys and girls shape gender policies and practices in schools? Why did criticisms of coeducation often have little impact on everyday classroom practices? To what degree did the treatment of boys and girls differ by class, race, region, and historical period? Why did policymakers alternatively see girls or boys as the group "at risk"? The authors show that the history of coeducation is not a unified tale of pathology or progress. Schools have reflected some of the gender inequalitities embedded in the larger society, yet they have in some degree been sheltered enclaves where children and youth were treated in ways that contrasted sharply with the lives of adult women and men. Debates over gender policies suggest that Americans have made public education the repository of their hopes and anxieties about relationships between the sexes. Thus the history of coeducation serves as a window not only on constancy and change in gender practices in the schools but also on cultural conflicts about gender in the broader society.