Going co-ed - the death of a single-sex school

: an exploration of gender culture in a school transitioning from all-boys' to coeducational student intake

Abstract

Over the past decade, the educational landscape in Australia has witnessed a notable trend: single-sex schools are increasingly transitioning to coeducation (Gannon, 2023). This shift is accompanied by increasing exposure to, and in some cases criticism of, the gender norms and cultures emerging from single-sex educational spaces, most notably all-boys’ schools (Nguyen, 2016; Variyan & Wilkinson, 2022). The noted increase of schools transitioning to a coeducational model mirrors a broader shift in educational priorities concerning gender in Australia, particularly as related to perceptions of masculinity. The purpose of this study is to document and examine the perceived shift in gender cultures – that is, the collective interpretations, enactments, and valuations of gender identities (Cameron, 2014) – within a school as it transitions from single-sex to coeducation. This qualitative single-case study adopted a feminist poststructural approach to analyse data collected at various stages of one all-boys’ school’s transition to coeducation from 2015 to 2019. This data was collected from interviews with students and teachers, digital artefacts, and classroom observations, to construct a comprehensive understanding of the gender culture enacted by the students and constructed by the school at various stages of the school’s transition. The researcher’s immersion in the site – by virtue of their employment as a full-time teacher in addition to their residency at the school’s boarding house – afforded significant insight into the school’s cultural nuances (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). Data analyses drew on related concepts including discourse and power (Collins, 2009; Foucault, 1978), subjectivity and agency (Weedon, 1997), intersectionality (Collins & Bilge, 2016; Crenshaw, 1991) and gender performativity (Butler, 1990), as well as notions of hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1995) couched within the neoliberal framework of education (Davies & Bansel, 2007). The study employed these theoretical concepts through a critical discourse analysis of the various data sets (Fairclough, 2010), elucidating the cultural repercussions of integrating girls into this historically male-centric school setting. Marking an innovative endeavour, this thesis is the first Australian research to chronicle the nuanced cultural evolution within an all-boys’ school transitioning to coeducation through an insider lens, capturing a critical period of change and cultural renegotiation. Theoretically informed analysis highlights how gender cultures function within the educational setting as both a tool of socialisation but also as a symbol within an Australian educational landscape that is increasingly responsive to neoliberal market values (Connell, 2011). Importantly, the findings suggest that treating female students as mere ‘ingredients’ for diversity fails to address the systemic equity issues facilitated by single-sex schools’ gender cultures. As such, this study gives weight to cultural considerations of schools’ gender compositions, displacing broader preoccupations with academic and attitudinal outcomes of single-sex spaces (Eisenkopf et al., 2015; Law & Sikora, 2020; Pahlke & Hyde, 2016). The analysis further suggests that an understanding of gender in isolation is insufficient; intersecting identity factors such as race, class and sexuality also play critical roles in shaping understandings of gender cultures in educational spaces. Ultimately, this research presents the ways in which coeducational restructurings have the potential to destabilise prevailing masculinist norms and foster inclusive gender cultures that result in more positive learning environments.

Date of Award	2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Western Sydney University
Supervisor	Jacqueline Ullman (Supervisor) & Tania Ferfolja (Supervisor)