ABSTRACT
Co-educational (Coed) high schools provide a more natural social environment to prepare adolescents to take their place in a society of men and women than do single-sex (SS) schools. Recent comparisons of achievement levels in SS and Coed schools typically show that academic achievement is substantially higher in SS schools than in Coed schools. In 1982 a boys' high school (BHS) and a girls' high school (GHS) were separate SS high schools serving the same suburb of metropolitan Sydney. Near the end of the study (1985), almost two years after the introduction of Coed classes, teachers were asked to complete a questionnaire detailing their perceptions of the transition. For both boys and girls there was a clear increase in self-concepts from the pre-transition to the post-transition, despite a small decrease in self-concepts for students attending newly established Coed classes during the transition year.
