Twelve essays by contemporary scholars explore, from a historical perspective, the meaning of collegiate coeducation in the United States, including its value, utility, significance, and successes and failures in supplying equal education for both sexes. An introductory first section contains the essay "Coeducation in a Gender-Stratified…

Selective single-sex colleges provide a more favorable environment than comparable coeducational institutions for influencing White, middle-class, academically capable undergraduates of both sexes to disregard conventional occupational prescriptions based on gender. Sexually segregated academic settings are instrumental in reducing male-female…

Compares the experience of 3 women's training colleges in Great Britain during the first half of the 20th century. Concludes that the training college culture, with its combination of individual enrichment and collective stagnation, is important to the history feminism. (CFR)

Reports on a study of the social construction of gender differences in classroom interactions during the first five years of a former women's college's transition to coeducation. Finds that the classroom interaction patterns of male and female professors and students were altered considerably by the transition. (CFR)

A report on a study of freshmen women's beliefs about psychological sex differences, attitudes toward sex roles, and ideals of femininity and masculinity is presented. A random sample of 232 freshmen entering a woman's college in September 1979 was studied longitudinally. Study instruments included a scale consisting of 16 propositions regarding…

Analysis of the search for selecting a president and a dean for a small women's college in the midwest showed how affirmative action goals, coupled with standard career expectations, damage female candidates. Reasons for failure to select a woman for either post included: (1) the tendency to compare women with women and men with men in the early…