Central to the assembling of the New South Wales public education system in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the setting of borders and boundaries between different categories of students. These boundaries were particularly decisive in the institution of the public high school, where entry and progress were regulated by tests…

Compares the effects of parents' occupational status, teachers' encouragement for further study, and high school curriculum on girls' academic achievement in girls' schools and coeducational schools. Results showed that mother's education was most important in predicting the type of school a girl attended. (Author/AEM)

A study of the sex role stereotypes held by 538 first-term Australian university students from single-sex and coeducational high schools is presented. Results suggest that coeducational schooling may have some advantages for fostering interactions with the opposite sex. (MSE)

A survey of Year 12 Australian students in coed private (n=105), coed public (n=57), and all-female (n=78) schools revealed a relationship between gender-role identity and traditional/nontraditional career choices; occupations were more gender neutral, but blue- and pink-collar jobs remain stereotyped. Type of school did not influence girls'…

Among the intervention strategies designed to increase the participation and achievement of girls in mathematics and science education, the establishment of single-sex classes in Australian coeducational postprimary schools seems to be growing faster than the substantive evidence to justify it. The findings from a longitudinal case study are…

Particularly in the 1960s and 1970s it was frequently argued that coeducational (Coed) high schools provided a more natural social environment to prepare adolescents for adulthood than did single sex (SS) schools. Based on the assumed accuracy of this belief, SS schools are becoming infrequent or even nonexistent in most western societies. This…

Identifies characteristics of good (Australian) senior secondary schools, defined as those providing postschool options for students. The most successful schools were the larger independent girls' schools with predominantly transformational leadership practices that promoted positive teacher perceptions of school organization and of students'…

Gender differences in mathematics learning continue to attract much research attention. Single-sex settings as the preferred option for improving schooling for girls have evoked fierce advocates as well as critics. This case study, undertaken in response to a specific request from a co-educational state school in the outer area of Melbourne,…

This paper reports learning environment research conducted in Australian Catholic high schools. A two-stage methodology involving quantitative and qualitative data-collection methods was employed. In the first stage, a sample of 1,719 students and 160 teachers responded to a specially developed classroom-environment questionnaire. Results…

The study focuses on the gendering of Australian school students through their participation in school. Specifically grades 7, 8 and 10 were studied. The initial group of 112 middle class students was studied by an ethnographic investigation of schooling practice in four classes of senior elementary school students for one year. Fifty-two students…