Coeducation is not effective, says Fize. The coexistence of boys and girls in the classroom has fostered understanding but has given rise to new problems.

MADRID. He acknowledges that the title of his latest book, “The Pitfalls of Blended Education,” can be misleading. French sociologist Michel Fize, an expert from the French Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), once again made it clear – at a meeting held at the Institute for Advanced Business Studies (IESE) in Madrid – that he is not advocating the elimination of coeducation in schools, but rather questioning its poor results.

The man who has sponsored the controversy over coeducation in France, the cradle of state education, defended that parents and students have the possibility of choosing between mixed or gender-disaggregated centers and also invited that the coeducation model not be assumed as something imposed, but that “we reflect on its effectiveness”. The controversy raised in the neighboring country has only been alive in Spain for a few months, but it has already given rise to an intense exchange of statements between parents’ associations, teachers and sociologists. On the one hand, the detractors of differentiated education argue that school is the engine of the evolutionary and social development of children, so that if men and women must coexist in society, it is best that they learn to do so in the school setting. On the other hand,its supporters dispute the effectiveness of coeducational schools because they show a significant increase in school failure and violence among students.

The Catholic Confederation of Parents Concapa expresses itself in this second line. For this association, the real battle horse is the “dogma” of coeducation adopted without further ado. “We intend -emphasizes its vice-president, Luis Carbonel- that there should be real research on what model is best for our students, and that a social debate should be opened in which parents receive information and can exercise their right to choose the education they want for their children”.

An instrument of “terrible efficiency

Michel Fize seems to place himself between the two. “Coeducation is a pedagogical tool that must be judged on the basis of its effectiveness,” he says. And it is undeniable,” he continues, “that in French schools there are more and more sexual assaults against adolescent girls and an increase in school failure among boys”. A model of “terrible results” that, for the former advisor to the French Ministry of Youth, is parallel to the one observed in our country.

What is going wrong in both systems? If coeducation was born under the banner of equal opportunities between the sexes, it did not take into account, according to Fize, the different rates of maturity and adaptation to the educational system of boys and girls, which recent studies have confirmed. It was hoped that it would lead to more respect and tolerance between the sexes and, consequently, better mutual understanding. Not only has this not been the case, the researcher points out, but it can be seen that the school environment has been progressively weakened in this area.

Fize, who likes to call himself a “social doctor” who analyzes society and offers a diagnosis of its illness, recognizes that “the culprit is not coeducation, but the incorrect learning that has resulted from the coexistence of the sexes in schools,” he acknowledges. The responsibility then falls on parents and teachers, since the “sexist clichés” that are still perpetuated today in families are reproduced in schools: more freedom is given to the boy, more discipline is demanded of the girl but better results for the boy in technical areas… Thus, he proposes a flexible and pluralistic system for public schools. The initiative consists of integrating separate education classrooms within mixed schools. Subjects such as gymnastics, sex education or mathematics would, in his view, undergo a 180-degree turnaround.