Publication Date

1948

Subjects

Coeducation, Opinions, Secondary education, Teacher attitudes

Comments

Information Bulletin / Australian Council for Educational Research ; n.11

Digitised in 2022 from a print copy held by the ACER library

Abstract

Few questions divide educational opinion more acutely than that as to whether boys and girls at the secondary stage should be taught in the same school or in separate schools. Public opinion in Australia is in the same position. According to the results of a Gallup Poll published in March 1947, fifty per cent were in favour of teaching together boys and girls of 11 years and over, 42 per cent would teach them separately, and 8 per cent were undecided. Adults between twenty and thirty years of age showed a distinctly more favourable attitude towards co-education than did older adults.

The arguments for and against co-education are set out at length in books and in journal articles. It is not the purpose of this bulletin to state or to assess these arguments. It is, rather to report the results of an enquiry into the opinions of teachers in the State of Victoria, It is obvious that such opinions, especially in the case of teachers with experience-in both types of school, should carry much weight. [p.1, ed]

Slightly more than 60% of teachers, both men and women, who had had experience in both types of school, favoured co-education; slightly less than 80% of those with experience in co-educational schools only, favoured it; and of the four teachers with experience in single sex schools only (all men) one favoured it and three opposed it. [p.4, ed]

Most of the teachers responded to the invitation to give their reasons for opposing or for advocating co-education. These reasons followed the general pattern which might have been expected and, of course, in sum total, covered most of the arguments pro and con which are to be found in reasoned discussions on the subject. [p.5, ed]

Place of Publication

Camberwell, Australia

Publisher

Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)

Language

English, English

Geographic Subject

Australia, Victoria, Australia

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