During my idle time at work, I do some reading, which include Andrew Leigh's blog. His articles are darn interesting at times. He's a leturer and an economist from Australia National University (ANU). (Rhian, must be proud of this yea? ;) )Today's one was this:

She's going to be a contender

Going to a single-sex school makes teenage girls more competitive than if they attend a co-educational school, a study of adolescent behaviour has found.

The findings reveal big differences in the competitive choices of girls from single-sex and co-ed schools and suggest a girl’s environment is more important than her genetic identity in affecting whether she chooses to compete with others.

The study of gender differences and competitive behaviour found students from girls’ schools behave more like boys when asked to enter a competition that involved a small financial reward. On average, they were just as likely as boys from single-sex or co-ed schools to behave competitively in the experiment designed by university researchers.

By contrast, girls from co-ed schools were much less likely to enter the competition when compared with boys and with their counterparts from all-girls schools. The differences in behaviour were stark, regardless of a student’s family background.

Girls in mixed-gender schools are under more pressure than their counterparts in single-sex schools to conform to gender stereotypes of feminine behaviour.

The school setting for boys made no difference to their competitive behaviour. The study found males from single-sex schools were just as likely to enter the competition as boys who attend co-ed schools.


The study was done by Alison Booth, another economist in ANU, on British students, with the median age of 15. Hm, I wonder...does it apply to Singaporeans and Malaysians? ;P