Modelos explicativos

Unlike in many other countries, in Israel there are single-sex classes only in the Jewish religious sector, in some Christian private institutions, and in a few high schools in the Arabic Muslim and Druses sectors. The influence of single-sex classes on the professional choices of girls in Israel has hardly been investigated.

5.6.1. In the religious sector

In Israel the objection to single-sex classes stems basically from recoiling from religious education, which is gender-separated (Sa’ar, 20.6.2001). About 20% of the Jewish schools in Israel belong to the state religious sector, while another 20% are Ultra-Orthodox. All these schools are single-sexed. However, these two sectors are different in almost all possible aspects. The program of general subjects is almost identical in the general school to that of the state-religious one, while most general subjects are hardly taught in the Ultra-Orthodox school. As a result while both female achievements and participation in math and science is higher in the state religious school than in the general education system (Ayalon & Yogev, 1996, 1997;

Rapaport & Garb, 1998; Rapoport, Garb, & Penso, 1995; Sa’ar, 20.6.2001), the

achievements and participation level in the Ultra-Orthodox sector is the lowest among all Israeli sectors. In the year 2000 only 1377 12th grade students in the Ultra- Orthodox education system – 11% – took the matriculation exams; only 529 of them were entitled to the matriculation certificate (Statistics, Israel, 2001a, table 8.21). In no other Israeli sector was the examinees percentage so low; In no other Jewish sector was the entitlement percentage lower than 60 (ibid).

Thus, the factor of single- vs. mixed sexes classes per se cannot predict participation or success rates in any population. It has always to be analyzed within a cultural, religious, and social context.

5.6.2. In the general sector

Until recently, no school belonging to the general, secular education system taught any subject – except for physical- and in some cases sexual education – in separate sex groups. In the school year 2000/2001 an experiment took place at the Mevo’ot Yiron school, belonging to four Kibbutzim: Ein Shemer, Ma’anit, Metzer, and Barkai: 9th grade girls could choose to learn physics in a separate class, and 12th grade boys studied literature in a separate class (Sa’ar, 20.6.2001; Shachar, 27.8.2001). These two grade-levels were chosen because they have a special importance regarding future academic choices. Girls usually dropout of the most prestigious mathematics-physics track after grade 9. As a result, the percentage of girls taking the highest possible math examination is about 14, while that of boys is more than 20 (Mevarech, 2000; Sa’ar, 20.6.2001; Statistics, Israel, 2001). Boys, on the other hand, must take a minimal amount of literature studies for the matriculation exam, and in most cases they take indeed only that minimum and do much worse than girls (Sa’ar, 20.6.2001; Statistics, Israel, 2001a). The opportunity to learn literature without girls was aimed to let boys discover their love to this subject and enable them to expand their horizons by learning more than the minimum works required.

The result of this experiment was that half of the 60 9th grade girls, who studied physics in separate classes, chose the mathematics-physics track, usually chosen only by about 10% of 10th grade pupils. It should be noted, that in the previous

year only one girl in that school chose this track. In addition, it was found that although only physics was taught in single-sex classes, there was a substantial improvement in the girls’ grades in all other subjects in comparison to the previous year. The results in the literature boys’ class were also good, the achievements were especially high, but the teacher, who had missed the living dialogue where mainly girls participated, decided not to continue teaching literature in a boys’ class. On the other hand, the separate physics classes continued in 2002, girls who took only 4- point mathematics level were also invited to join, and computers single-sex girls’ classes started to operate as well (Sa’ar, 20.6.2000).

The excellent results of this experiment however have not persuaded other secular schools in the Jewish sector to offer single-class settings in mathematics or science. Neither have the overwhelming matriculation results in the state religious high schools – all operate in singles class settings. Unlike in the general education system, state religious schools are much less selective regarding the socio-economic or the average grades of applicants. In addition, the dropout rate in the religious sector is lower than in the secular one.

In the general ducation system ethnic origin influences pupils’ grades more than any other measured variable though the mediator of parents’ education. The percentage of state religious school children, whose parents were born in Asia/Africa, is much higher than that in the secular sector. In spite of that the rate of girls excelling in the high level mathematics and physics matriculation exams has been 10% higher among religious girls than among girls studying in the secular system (Sa’ar, 20.6.2000).

The debate about single-sex classes, which has been taking place in the US for the last few decades, has just started in Israel. Unfortunately, no serious scientific arguments have been part in it. About two months after the first results of the Mevo’ot Yiron experiment were published, the Ministry of Education offered school headmasters to read a summary of studies about single-sex science classes (Shachar, 27.8.2001, 7.3.2002). A few days later a famous Israeli female writer wrote an article recommending learning math and science in single-classes (Har’even, 2001), while a famous Israeli feminist published an article by the name: “No to the sexual Apartheid” (Herzog, 2001). The debate did not go on; in the school year 2001/2 no new single-sex classes were opened in the secular sector, in spite of the recommendation of the ministry of education to open 7th-12th grade girls’ classes for math and science (Shacher, 30.8.2001). Thus the gender participation gap in physics, computers, and mathematics remained at the previous year’s level.