This article is a focused response to the call for a "conscious use of crystallization," in qualitative research. To this end, the author brings into play a full-bodied textual metaphor, the "palimpsest," to stimulate the expansion of an integrated crystallization typology--comprised of woven and patched approaches.…

Reviews in many countries have found little evidence of consistent advantages in either single-sex education or coeducation. Over the last three decades, coeducation has been introduced into many single-sex schools, but there is a dearth of evidence from the student perspective of the impact of such changes on the classroom learning environment.…

Using data from the 2004-2007 National Study of Living Learning Programs, the only national dataset offering longitudinal information on outcomes associated with living-learning (L/L) program participation, this study investigated the role of L/L programs and other college environments in the professional outcome expectations of women in science,…

Background: The population of Mauritius consists of 52% females and scientific literacy is seen to be of vital importance for all young people if they are to be sufficiently equipped to meet the challenges of a fast changing world. Previous research shows, however, that science is not popular among girls. This paper explores one of many reasons…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences of Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) scores between fourth-grade African American male students who were enrolled in single-sex classrooms and their counterparts who were enrolled in coeducational classrooms. The research provided descriptive data concerning one Title I school in rural…

The voices of parents are not often heard in the literature and, when they are, it tends to be a litany of battles with the schooling system to achieve or not achieve some sort of acceleration for their gifted children (Gross, 2004). This retrospective study is unusual, as it is not based on a history of conflict. It is a positive account of…

Perceived competence is a key motivational determinant of physical activity behaviours in adolescents, and motivational determinants are influenced by the class environment. The purpose of this study was to investigate levels of perceived physical competence, enjoyment and effort in class, focusing on gender and class-type differences.…

Generally, boys and girls become more polarized through their first years in school. Now, researchers have started to explore how to span that sex divide and are finding that more-equitable coed classrooms can have social and academic benefits for boys and girls alike. While children of both sexes play together as toddlers, by the end of…

The growing literature on the gendering of citizenship and citizenship education highlights that western notions of "citizenship" have often been framed in a way that implicitly excludes women. At the same time, insofar as feminist writers have addressed citizenship, they have tended to see it in largely local and national terms. While…

Since Title IX was enacted in the United States in 1972, Physical Education (PE) classes have become coeducational. This may be because educational leaders interpret Title IX to require coeducational-only classes. Research, however, indicates that for some students, coeducation classes may not be the most appropriate learning environment. The…

Background: Physical education teacher behaviour has been a subject of study in physical education including physical education teacher education for 30 years. However, the research on teacher behaviour has tended to focus on direct teaching behaviour (DTB) to demonstrate the benefits of effective teaching, centred on a technical understanding of…

Chemistry is one of the subjects that students sit for in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE). The attainment of students in chemistry in KCSE has been quite low. An analysis of the past Chemistry examination papers taken in KCSE reveals that the papers test students' competencies in various aspects of Cognitive Science Process…

During the 2009-10 school year, 42% of the students failed the biology segment of the EOCT, which affected not only the final grades of these students, but also overall school accountability. These results instigated some questions about the factors associated with students' success in biology; some of those factors related to the merit of single-…

This study investigated girls' attitudes towards science in Kenya. It was carried out with 120 girls from four secondary schools in the Eastern province of Kenya. These were an urban single-sex (SS) and co-educational (Co-Ed) school and a rural SS and Co-Ed school. Different schools were chosen in order to explore whether there are any differences…

The 21st century has been a time of major change for women's colleges (Calefati, 2009; Harwarth, et al, 1997; Powers, 2007). From an all time high of close to 300 in operation, now less than 100 exist (Calefati, 2009). The decade of the 1980s saw a convergence of a perfect storm of challenges: declining birth rates that produced fewer…