VENTURA : Study Targets School Gender Segregation

After receiving national attention for its sex-segregated math program, a Ventura middle school has been targeted for a study on the benefits of teaching girls and boys separately.

The Ventura Unified School District board has agreed to allow Anacapa Middle School to participate in a study proposed by a professor at Providence College in Rhode Island.

Anacapa attracted attention this year when it launched one seventh-grade math class for girls only and one for boys. The school also has coeducational math classes for seventh-graders.

Ventura High School also began to offer girls-only math classes this year. Educators at both schools contend that segregating the sexes in math may help lessen girls’ fears of the subject. Studies have shown that girls’ grades and interest in math begin to fall off markedly during junior high.

Providence College Professor Cornelius Riordan said his study of Anacapa and other schools in the United States will depend on whether he is awarded needed grants.

If the funding comes through, Riordan will conduct the study in the 1994-95 school year. The project would include classroom visits and questionnaires sent to students, their parents and teachers.

Riordan, who teaches sociology at the private Catholic college, said most studies agree that girls benefit significantly from attending all-girls schools. “What is not known is actually why that is,” he said.

The purpose of his study would be to discover why students perform better in classes that only have students of their gender.