Single Sex Schools Are Psychologically Challenging For Girls, New Report Says
According to a new report, social and emotional pressures on young women increase in single sex schools.
The youth group Comhairle na nOg conducted a survey, called So, How Was School Today?, which interviewed over 3,200 people between the ages of 12 to 17. The survey found a number worrying trends:
- Girls in single-sex schools had higher levels of exam stress compared to boys.
- Girls in single-sex schools tended to be more negative about their experience of school than boys.
- Boys also felt more able to talk to teachers than girls and were more likely to say they experienced good student support.
According to The Irish Times, psychotherapist Stella O’Malley, author of Bully-Proof Kids agrees that girls suffer for a number of reasons in single-sex schools:
...Although they may do better academically in single-sex schools, what they lose on the swings they gain on the roundabouts, as the pressure to perform socially can be too intense for many girls and so they ultimately end up under-performing in all spheres. The psychologist Oliver James identified high-performing 15-year-old girls as the unhappiest group of people in England or Ireland and I would agree with his findings – in my counselling work, I meet high-performing teenage girls more often than anyone else. These girls tend to be perfectionist and very self-motivated. When their peers are similarly driven, intense competition and rivalry might mean that the results are impressive but the implications for long-term mental health issues often significantly reduce the potential for them to lead successful and satisfying lives.
Many people defend the all-girls school model and see no real increase in anxiety or mental health issues such as eating disorders, including the principal of Alexandra College in Dublin Barbara Ennis:
Girls work hard and put themselves under a lot of pressure to do well academically and socially. They far outstrip boys in the Leaving Certificate exams and attain higher academic results than boys whether they attend single sex or co-ed schools...What needs to be done in a school setting, is to help ameliorate stress and associated problems to empower girls to be confident, self-assured young women and help them to tackle peer pressure by enabling conversations about how it has a powerful role to play in developing anxiety, as does parental pressure.
Dr David Carey, director of psychology at City Colleges and dean of the College of Progressive Education, says parents need to focus on what is in the head of the child rather than what's on the head of a child.
I don’t favour one type of education over the other...Instead I favour a school were the adults in charge care more about what is in the head than what is on the head; where young people are treated with dignity and respect by every adult in the school, where a school head will have no truck or patience with any adult who disparages or shames student and where there is a completely harmonious environment.