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Useful Books
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In August 2007, Basic Books published Boys Adrift:
the five factors driving the growing epidemic of unmotivated boys and underachieving young men. This book begins with a
thorough investigation of how American education has changed in the past 30 years, and how these changes have had the unintended
effect of disengaging many boys from school, from books, and from the life of the mind. Boys Adrift is the second book by Dr. Leonard Sax, executive director of NASSPE.
Dr. Sax also offers detailed advice about how to get boys and young men back in gear. One of the strategies he recommends is (surprise!) single-sex classrooms.
Lots of good references provided. For more information, including links to Dr. Sax's appearance on the TODAY show and the
Diane Rehm Show, check out the Boys Adrift web site.
In the spring of 2007, Dr. Abigail James, a member of the
NASSPE Advisory Board, published her book "Teaching the Male
Brain." Dr. James' book has arguably been more than 30 years in the making, because she has 30 years of classroom experience
as a teacher - plus her doctoral work in education at the University of Virginia. Dr. James' book
provides an up-to-date review of sex differences in the human brain, but her book is especially
valuable for the many practical strategies she outlines, strategies which can
be employed in the all-boys classroom to engage every kind of boy. (Many of her strategies can be
employed in coed classrooms as well.)
Dr. James will be a featured speaker at our
third biennial international conference in
Chicago, Saturday and Sunday, October 6 and 7.
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In 2005, Doubleday published Why Gender Matters: what parents and teachers need to know about the emerging science of sex differences. The author is Dr. Leonard Sax, executive director of NASSPE.
In 2006, Random House published an
an expanded softcover edition of Why Gender Matters, including ten pages of new material on best practices for teaching math and science to girls.
The book is also available in an unabridged audio version on CD
and also as a download from Audible.com.
Throughout the book, Dr. Sax draws on recent research to demonstrate that differences
in how girls and boys learn are far more substantial and more important than most of us ever imagined. The book
presents some of the latest information about hardwired differences in how girls and boys hear, and see, and respond to different teaching styles.
Many specific examples of approaches that have been proven to work in the classroom are provided.
The book also includes gender-appropriate guidance for difficult issues such as drug abuse, sex, and discipline.
You can learn more about the book, and read an excerpt, at the the book's web site.
In March 2004, Penguin Books published Where Girls Come First, a history of all-girls schools in the United States. The author is journalist Ilana Debare, who herself is a co-founder of the Julia Morgan School for Girls in Oakland, California. Her book is a thoughtful and provocative history, showing how all-girls education began as a subversive, countercultural movement in the early 1800's -- empowering young women at a time when the larger culture was denying equal rights to women. Unfortunately, the movement ossified in the early 1900's, as many girls' schools became elite, exclusive bastions of privilege. Debare provides a thoughtful analysis of the "surprising revival" of girls' schools in the past 20 years. You can read more, including extended excerpts from the book, at the book's home page.
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 In 2003, the French publisher Renaissance Press (Presses de la Renaissance) published Les Pièges de la Mixité Scolaire (The Hazards of Coeducation).
This book is a bold critique of the whole idea of putting girls and boys together in a classroom. But the author, Michel Fize, is not a lunatic or a reactionary; on the contrary, he is a progressive thinker on the staff of France's most prestigious research institute, the CNRS (Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, i.e. the National Center for Scientific Research.
Fize presents substantial evidence that the decades-long escalation in problems such as sexual violence in the schools and boys losing interest in school - both of which were rare in France 40 years ago but are common today - can be attributed directly to the introduction of coeducation over the same period. As Fize observes, prior to World War II most French schools were single-sex; now almost all are coeducational.
If you took high school French, you can read this book! The French is very accessible and readable. You can order your own copy at
the book's amazon.fr Web site.
In 2003, Yale University Press published Same, Different, Equal: rethinking single-sex schooling, by St. John's professor of law Rosemary Salomone, J.D., Ph.D. Professor Salomone's book is the definitive work on the legal and policy aspects of single-sex education in the United States. Click here to go to Amazon.com's page about Professor Salomone's book.
Or, you can read this review published in the Christian Science Monitor.
Professor Salomone led a panel discussion on the future of single-sex public education at
NASSPE's first international conference,
which took place at the National Press Club, August 22 2003.
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