ABSTRACT
The comparison of the attainment of co-educated and single-sex educated pupils has given US fairly clear expectations about the relative keenness of interest of these opposing groups in the various subjects of the curriculum, especially for the boys. In English literature, however, the expectations are less clear, possibly because in this subject the social class handicap of the co-educational schools acts more strongly on their attainment, so that even the co-educated boys do not have the same consistency in their lead that they have in most other subjects. At the start of their secondary school career the co-educated girls liked French a little less than did the girls in girls' schools, but by the age of 13 the co-educated girls had clearly the more favourable estimates. Physics is another subject which might show an extra polarizing effect, according to interest by sex of pupil, in co-educational schools.
