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From: rberlin%birdlandEng@sun.COM (Rich Berlin)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: sexist spaces
Message-ID: <10158@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 21 Mar 91 00:15:13 GMT
References: <9103141008.AA27039@rpp386.Cactus.ORG>
Reply-To: rberlin@eng.sun.COM
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In article <9103141008.AA27039@rpp386.Cactus.ORG>, jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F Haugh II) writes:
|> Other school districts, such as the Orleans Parish district (City of New
|> Orleans and surrounding areas) are still somewhat sexually segregated
|> because of the high degree of private education.  You might contact
|> those schools as well as there are still boys-only and girls-only
|> private schools to compare against the both-genders private schools.

As someone who lived in New Orleans, I can contribute to this a bit.
I think you would have a difficult time drawing meaningful conclusions
from data derived from these schools because the quality of the
applicant pools varies greatly.  To draw any conclusions you'd have to
choose schools very carefully; e.g. you wouldn't want to compare
Newman (a private co-ed school with very high academic standards and a
prohibitive price tag, hence largely upper- and upper-middle class)
against Dominican (a parochial girls school, much less expensive and
largely working-class).

It would be an interesting study, but I suspect it would take years to
get good data because to eliminate extraneous variables you'd have to
do longitudinal studies on a fairly large, carefully selected sample.
Also, the participants may end up being self-selecting if you have to
get their or their parents permission before studying them.

-- Rich