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33 Harv. J.L. & Gender 555 (2010)
Learning Differences: Sex-Role Stereotyping in Single-Sex Public Education

handle is hein.journals/hwlj33 and id is 559 raw text is: LEARNING DIFFERENCES: SEX-ROLE STEREOTYPING IN SINGLE-SEX PUBLIC EDUCATION JULIET A. WILLIAMS TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction .................................................... 555 I. The Emerging Science of Sex Differences ............... 558 A. Putting the Science of Sex Difference into Practice .... 560 II. Sex-Stereotyping and the Law ............................ 564 A. Single-Sex Public Education and the Law ............. 565 B. Sexual Realism and the Limitations of Intermediate Scrutiny Analysis .................................... 569 III. Sex Difference and Social Disadvantage .................. 573 A. Leveraging Disadvantage ............................ 574 B. Intersectionality and the Politics of Difference ......... 577 C onclusion ..................................................... 579 INTRODUCTION In the United States today, a movement for single-sex public education is rapidly gaining momentum, propelled by a new educational paradigm which grounds demands for gender-sensitive school reforms in an insistence on the pedagogical significance of biological sex differences. Over the past decade, the number of primary and secondary public schools in the United States offering single-sex educational opportunities has risen dramatically, from a reported eleven single-sex public schools in 2002 to more than ninety today, with hundreds more schools providing single-sex classrooms within co-educational institutions.' In the coming years, the number of K-12 sin- gle-sex public schools is expected to surge, a development that is being en- I See Greg Toppo, Government Seeks Single-Sex Schools, ASSOCIATED PRESS ONLINE, Sept. 16, 2002 (discussing the high demand for the eleven single-sex public schools na- tionwide in 2002); Nat'l Ass'n for Single Sex Pub. Educ., Single-Sex Schools/Schools with Single-Sex Classrooms/What's the Difference?, http://www.singlesexschools.org/ schools-schools.htm (last visited Mar. 3, 2010) (In March 2002, when NASSPE was founded, only about a dozen public schools offered single-gender classrooms. As of February 2010, there are at least 540 public schools in the United States offering single- sex educational opportunities.). The Department of Education does not officially track the number of single-sex schools nationwide; nor does it provide data on how many public schools are entirely single-sex or just have separate classes for boys and girls.