Introduction

This volume on single-sex and coeducational schooling grew out of a special meeting at the annual conference of the Research on Women in Education Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association, held at Hofstra University in New York in 1998. A group of us who had conducted or were currently conducting studies of single-sex and coeducation schooling were brought together by Patricia Schmuck, a longtime scholar in the field of gender and education. The goal of this meeting was to discuss what we know about single-sex and coeducational schooling and consider the questions that remain unanswered. We shared our research and discussed the commonalities and differences that we saw emerging from our data. Alan Sadovnik, who was also present at the meeting, shared his research and suggested that we put together an edited volume, which he offered to consider for his RoutledgeFalmer book series. Most of the individuals who were present at that meeting contributed chapters to this volume, and additional authors were solicited as the book was developed in order to include a more comprehensive rendering of the subject.