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Europe has a long history of single-gender sex education which essentially meant educating boys. Europe was not unique in this regard. England over time developed many different types of school, until the 19th century, most schools were primarily for boys. The same was even more true true in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. English schools like other European schools primarily educated boys. All of the early English schools were just for boys such as monastic song (choir) schools. Until fairly recently, very few children attended school and literacy was limited. With the Renaissance and the quickening of the medieval economy there was an increasing need to learn to read and do sums, this largely meant the boys. This began in the monastic schools. New grammar schools appeared at the end of the medieval era--bolstered by King Henry VIII's dissolution of the Monasteries which closed the only schools girls could attend the time--convent schools. And we begin to see what the English in their own unique way called public schools -- elite private boarding schools (16th century). The Protestant Reformation (16th century) also had a significant impact on education, because Protestants believed that people needed to read the Bible. The Bible was often the only book found in homes. The The result was increased literacy, but did not mean at first that girls began to attend schools. The major exception became the Dame School. And there were private academies, essentially finishing schools with generally very poor academic standards. It would not be until the 19th century when the idea of educating girls beyond basic reading gained any currency in Britain and other countries. As part of the Enlightenment, European thinkers began to discuss the education of girls. Coeducation meaning teaching boys and girls together is a very modern practice. This is primarily because even schools wee founded, for centuries they were only for boys. For centuries, some girls from noble or rich families might be tutored, but they did not attend schools. It was finally the Reformation that changed this (16th century) A major concern of the Protestants was to go back to the early Church and wanted a scriptural basis for religious practices. And Protestants did not trust priests to interpret the Bible to them, they believed that every individual should read for themselves. And this meant women as well as men. At the time only a small part attended schools (all boys) meaning literacy was not widespread. So we see schools being established. This was the origins of the early grammar schools which were only for boys. But many Protestants wanted a far wider personal study of the Bible than a few grammar schools made possible. And they wanted wives and mothers to participate in the Bile reading. This provide the possibility of home teaching. We at first see this in Germany, Scotland, and eventually the American colonies. At first this did not occur in England with its Anglican Church which was not as severely Protestant as the rest of northern Europe. There are substantial similarities between boys and girls school uniforms in England. Girls have adopted many items worn by boys such as ties and blazers. We are not sure precisely why this was, but suspect it may be because there was a long tradition of boys' boarding schools in England before the first girls' school was opened. The girls' schools apparently followed the examples of the already prestigious boys' schools. Besides the blazers and ties, girls wore the same sweaters that boys wore. Girls wore different styles of head wear, including berets and brimmed hats. There were of course differences. Girls always wore different head wear than the boys. Also they wore skirts rather than trousers. Here many schools for some reason had blouses and skirts for cool weather wear and light-wight dresses for warm weather. There were also differences in hosiery. Some girls wore grey knee socks, but white ankle and knee socks were very common. Also footwear varied. Although both boys and girls wore school sandals, girls commonly wore strap shoes. There were also sturdy school oxfords, but they were styled somewhat differently than the boys' shoes.
Europe has a long history of single-gender sex education which essentially meant educating boys. Europe was not unique in this regard. England over time developed many different types of school, until the 19th century, most schools were primarily for boys. The same was even more true true in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. English schools like other European schools primarily educated boys. All of the early English schools were just for boys such as monastic song (choir) schools. Until fairly recently, very few children attended school and literacy was limited. With the Renaissance and the quickening of the medieval economy there was an increasing need to learn to read and do sums, this largely meant the boys. This began in the monastic schools. New grammar schools appeared at the end of the medieval era--bolstered by King Henry VIII's dissolution of the Monasteries. And we begin to see what the English in their own unique way called public schools -- elite private boarding schools (16th century). The Protestant Reformation (16th century) also had a significant impact on education, because Protestants believed that people needed to read the Bible. The Bible was often the only book found in homes. The The result was increased literacy, but did not mean at first that girls began to attend schools. The one exception was the Dame School. These were small, privately-run schools for younger children that appeared in Britain and its colonies (17th century). They were taught by a 'school dame', a local woman who would provide day and educate children for a small fee. [Barnard, pp. 2-4.] Most school dames had very limited educations as they had not attended any school. But the fees were low and both boys and girls attended together. This would be the only significant mixing of boys and girls in schools until the 20th century. England was a little different than several Protestant countries in that it was slow in developing a free public education system. Parishes in England began opening primary schools (19th century). Charities were also involved. These were almost all single gender schools. England finally began to create a national state school systems with the Education Act of 1870. This would include educating girls, but for the most part separately. We begin to see more coed school after World War I in the 1920s. This as far we we can tell mostly began in the state primaries. The Anglican and Cthoic chools were dlower to adopt coeducation. The privte schools were even slower. While there were primary schools for the girls, there were very few secondary schools. The private public schools were almost exclusively for the boys. There was ingrained resistance in the secondary schools to educating girls. These public schools could be rough places. The progressive school movement began raising the issue of coeducation (early-20th century), but this did not have a major impact until after World War II. The primary issue was increasing the size of the secondary system to provided educational opportunity for working-class children.
There were some opportunities for girls (18th century). The most important opportunity was the Dame School which required a small fee. Families with means could afford tutors. And there were private academies, essentially finishing schools with generally very poor academic standards. It would not be until the 19th century when the idea of educating girl beyond basic reading gained any currency in Britain and other countries. As part of the Enlightenment, European thinkers began to discuss the education of girls. Here Jean-Jacques, one of the most important of the Enlightenment philosophers, discussed the issue of educating women in his treatise 'Emile, or on Education' (1762). Roseau was hardly a feminist and considered women to be the weaker sex, but excluding girls from school was a different matter. All the talk of 'equality of among men' and the French Revolution inevitably led to the issue of educating women being discussed seriously for the first time in England (1790s). The general opinion at the time was that women were not intellectually or emotionally capable of serious thought and contemplation and thus would not benefit from schooling beyond basic reading and writing. The idea of educating women was widely dismissed. A factor here was that parents felt that girls should be kept at home a more closely supervised than boys. A major advocate for girls and women was Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97) who challenged 18th century thought on women and strongly advocated educating girls. [Wollstonecraft] Perhaps the accession of Queen Victoria had an impact on English thinking. As primary schools began to appear throughout England, girls began to receive opportunities beyond the Dame School, but there were no secondary schools for girls or university education. The primary schools opened by charities and some municipalities were not always free, but there was a degree of coeducation and the same basic curriculum for boys and girls. This was especially the case for small village schools which could not support separate facilities. By mid-century literacy rates had improved, but still lagged behind that of men. One study showed 51 percent for females and 70 percent for males. A range of of developments were at play in Victorian society. Laws were passed to protect children and women in the work force. There were also demographic changes with women somewhat out numbering men. This meant that that there were an increasing number of women that had no expectation of marriage which in Victorian society, with few employment opportunities, was for women the primary means of economic security. The medieval grammar school evolved in the Victorian era to become an important part of the English education system. Unlike the public (elite private boarding) schools, they were for the most part secondary schools. England needed more educated people for the rising industrial economy and to administer the growing Empire. These grammar schools had much lower fees than the public schools so it widened economic opportunity, although not for working-class boys and girls of all classes. Thus girls were excluded from the opportunities generated by the expanding British economy. And when England began building a free state education system, the separation of genders in these schools meant that a distinctive curriculum with a focus on domestic duties(cooking, laundry and needlework) developed. At the same time by the end of the 19th century more young women were thinking about careers. Education rose in importance among feminist thinking, but it was suffrage that became the key issue. Schools for girls began to appear in the mid-19th century. Dorothea Beale opened a girls' public boarding school. Her friend Frances Mary Buss opened a girls' grammar school. [Dyhouse] Many other girls schools followed, including grammar schools. And while the curriculum varied from school to school, it provided girls access to a modern education including that of the boys. And the first young women began to appear in universities (1860s). Most schools kept boys and girls separate at the turn of the 20th century, but primary schools began to shift toward coeducation after World War I (1920s). Secondary schools were still almost entirely single gender schools until after World War II when Britain began to significantly expand the secondary system, The new comprehensive schools were all coeducational. Private schools continued to be mostly single gender schools, but a major shift began in the private sector as well (1970s). Interestingly many boys' schools went coed, but girls' schools continued as steadfastly single-gender schools.
Coeducation meaning teaching boys and girls together is a very modern practice. This is primarily because even schools wee founded, for centuries they were only for boys. For centuries, some girls from noble or rich families might be tutored, but they did not attend schools. It was finally the Reformation that changed this (16th century) A major concern of the Protestants was to go back to the early Church and wanted a scriptural basis for religious practices. And Protestants did not trust priests to interpret the Bible to them, they believed that every individual should read for themselves. And this meant women as well as men. At the time only a small part attended schools (all boys) meaning literacy was not widespread. So we see schools being established. This was the origins of the early grammar schools which were only for boys. But many Protestants wanted a far wider personal study of the Bible than a few grammar schools made possible. And they wanted wives and mothers to participate in the Bile reading. This provide the possibility of home teaching. We at first see this in Germany, Scotland, and eventually the American colonies. At first this did not occur in England with its Anglican Church which was not as severely Protestant as the rest of northern Europe. Northern England was something of an exception. Over time the Dame School appeared. This was a kind of private school. Parents paid a woman of varies education to care for their younger children. Some were essentially baby sitting centers, but some actually did some real teaching--enough to begin reading the Bible. Town school began to appear (18th century). These were schools for younger children and in many, girls like in the Dame schools, might be admitted to study with the boys.
The Society of Friends (Quakers) in England and the United States as well as in the United States were early adopters of coeducation. Quaker settlements in the British colonies mostly adopted coeducation. In America, the new free public primary which after the American Revolution supplanted church institutions were almost always coeducational. The Northwest Ordinance provided a means of financing public (state) schools as the frontier moved west. Britain also lagged behind many other countries in state-financed education. Only with the Education Act of 1870 did Britain begin to build a major free national education system. But this did not mean coeducation. Most of the new school were single gender schools. This was not unusual in Europe, but coeducation had been adopted in the United which established a national public education system (actually separate state systems) well before England. There were some coeducation, but mostly small schools in villages that could not support two separate schools. Even in schools with boys and girls, however, there were efforts to keep the boys and girls separate. such as separate classes and separate playgrounds (school yards). Of course English state schools did not include secondary schools until well into the 20th century. Grammar schools which were a kind of half step toward state secondary schools were almost all single gender schools. The move toward coeducation began at English universities. The same process occurred in the Continent. Girton College at Cambridge was established for women (1869). The London School of Economics was opened for women (1874). Coeducation in the secondary system continued to be limited until after World War II. Interestingly a coeducation argument was at first that it would improve academic standards for the boys. (Modern thinking is that single gender schools improve academic standards fir the girls.) Private schools, both the preparatory schools and public (elite private boarding) schools were especially resistant to coeducation. This begin to change in the 1970s when economic conditions began to force smaller private schools to close. Accepting girls enabled many schools, especially prep schools to maintain their rolls.
Barnard, H.C. A History of English Education from 1760 (London: University of London Press, 1961).
Dyhouse, Carol. ‘Miss Buss and Miss Beale: gender and authority in the history of education’, in Felicity Hunt, ed. Lessons for Life: The Schooling of Girls and Women, 1850-1950 (Basil Blackwell: 1987), pp. 22-38.
Purvis, June. A History of Women’s Education in England (Open University Press: 1991)
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Thoughts on the Education of Daughters with Reflections of Female Conduct in the More Important Duties of Life (J. Johnson: 1787).
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