Single-sex schooling: is it simply a 'class act'?

The current debate about boys education risks taking us back decades in terms of understanding the significance of gender in relation to education. Of particular concern here is the tendency within such debates to rely on dichotomous understandings of gender which reinscribe essentialist understandings of both 'girls' and 'boys'. In this way, the so-called gender wars construct a climate whereby difference between the categories obfuscates difference within each. Here this issue is explored most specifically in relation to access to higher education and the possible impact of single-sex schooling. Current debates surrounding boys' experience of schooling have refreshed interest in the possible benefits of single-sex education, particularly for boys. Schools are establishing single-sex classes for boys and in some cases parallel education ( the provision of single-sex facilities for girls and boys at the same campus) is being promoted as a way forward. In this paper we examine data from Australia's largest and most diverse university in order to explore the relationship between single-sex schooling and access to higher education in ways which account for difference based primarily on school sector and socio-economic status. In these terms, if single-sex schooling is beneficial for boys we need to consider which boys are benefiting and at whose expense.