外刊 | 英国单一性别 vs 混合制教育 上

在国内很少有单一性别的学校，所以可能不容易想象如果是在这样的学校跟在男女同校会有什么不一样的感受。单一性别的学校在英美很常见，因为工作的关系，有接触过这类学校，基本上都是标榜在没有异性干扰的环境下，提供针对或者鼓励启发这个性别的教育。没有性别的干扰是否就是好的，这就仁者见仁了。不过在英国，混合制教育确实是大势。

# 经济学人 #

April 28th-May 4th 2018

专栏 | Britain

Co-educational schools: Sex change

Until the 1960s virtually all children went to single-sex schools. Today only 6% do

在上世纪六十年代之前，几乎所有的学生都是上的单一性别的学校，而如今上这类学校的学生只占到全部学生的6%

IN 2021 Charterhouse’s hushed cloisters and vast, immaculate lawns will welcome new arrivals. For the first time since the boarding school’s foundation in 1611, girls will be among the “yearlings”, the term for those joining at the age of 13. Alex Peterken, the school’s head teacher, is excited by the change. He believes that co-education holds many advantages, one of which is that it helps militate against a “macho, alpha-male culture, based on hierarchy and order”.

寄宿制学校Charterhouse始建于1611年，本来是所男校，在2021年要迎来第一批13岁的女孩了。校长Alex Peterken很乐于见证这样的改变，他相信混合制的教育会更有优势。女孩的加入有助于缓解男校向来的教育理念——崇尚男子气概。

* immaculate: adj. so clean and tidy that there is no dirt

e.g. The whole house was absolutely immaculate.

* militate against: [formal] to make sth more difficult to do or less likely to happen

* alpha-male: the man or male animal in a particular group who has the most power

For centuries, that was a big part of what boys’ boarding schools offered. And they were not alone in their approach. Until the 1960s all schools, with the exception of “one or two radical ventures”, were single-sex, says Alan Smithers, an education expert at the University of Buckingham. There was a big move towards mixed schooling with the introduction of comprehensive (ie, non-selective) secondary education, which offered a chance to reorganise the school system along more egalitarian lines. In the aftermath, the number of single-sex schools continued to decline.

几个世纪以来，强调男子气概这个部分在男校是非常重要的。据白金汉大学的教育专家Alan Smithers说，在上世纪六十年代之前，除了零星的几个冒进派的混合制学校，其他全都是单一性别学校。通过引入全面的（即非选择性的）中等教育实现向混合制教育的重大跨越，这为中等教育体系沿着更平等的路线提供了机会。 在这之后，单一性别学校的数量继续下降。

* schooling: the education that you get at school 

e.g. My grandmother had very little schooling.

The trend shows no signs of stopping. In 2010 542,125 pupils in England attended a single-sex school. Now just 509,910, or 6%, of pupils do. And although the shift has been fastest in the private sector, where schools have little choice but to respond to market incentives, it is noticeable in the state sector, too. Altogether 889 single-sex schools remain, a narrow majority of them funded by the state.

混合制教育排山倒海般来了。2010年，有542125人上的单一性别的学校。而现在只有509910人，即6%的人上单一性别的学校。私立学校为了迎合市场，转变速度是最快的，但在公立学校同样有这样的趋势。现存的889所单一性别的学校里，公立学校占多数。

The decline is not for want of support in education circles. Those in favour argue that single-sex schools allow pupils to flourish, free from the distracting influence of the opposite sex. Last year Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector of schools, wrote a defence of girls’ schools. She argued that they helped women “take their full place in a world which is, to some degree, loaded against them.” In 2016 an analysis of English schools by SchoolDash, a data firm, found that single-sex schools appeared to provide a small boost to the results of girls, but not to those of boys.

单一性别学校数量的下降并非因缺乏教育界的支持。单一性别教育的支持者认为单一性别教育可以让学生茁壮成长，并且能摆脱异性导致分心的影响。去年，学校督察长Amanda Spielman就曾为女校辩护，称“女校可以让女孩在一个没那么重视女性的世界里能在学校受到充分重视”。2016年，数据公司SchoolDash对英国学校进行的一项分析发现，单一性别的教育似乎有助于提高女孩的成绩，但对男孩的成绩却没有什么影响。

The trend away from single-sex education is mostly driven by boys’ schools, which like the better exam results provided by female pupils, as well as the opportunity to double the size of their market. Girls’ schools then have little choice but to follow suit.

推动混合制教育的大多是男校，原因有两点：1. 女孩可以带来更好的考试成绩；2. 有机会扩大招生市场。而女校别无选择，只能随大流。

* follow suit: to act or behave in the way that sb else has just done

- To be continued -

peace out ~