ABSTRACT
After thirty-two years as an elite, all-male Catholic high school, Xavier Preparatory High School decided to enroll young women. We studied Xavier for two years with a multifaceted research design, making comparisons with two sister all-female high schools in the same diocese. One sister school chose to become coeducational, the other reaffirmed its commitment to remain all-female. We examined how society's collective consciousness about gender and its unspoken assumptions about male privilege influenced school learning environments. We also examined how the school's culture shaped experiences of students and faculty.
