Together or separate? Contributions from neuroeducation to the debate on sex segregation in schools

This article analyses the debate on the desirability of separating children by sex in schools. The study reviews the neuroscientific arguments that can inform decisions on this issue. The author starts from the understanding that the education debate should centre its decision not on neuroscientific findings, which are still inconclusive, but on a proposal that evaluates the aim of education. As a new field of study, neuroeducation has the opportunity to draw into the dialogue all the disciplines participating to that end.

Do personality sex differences mirror personality differences across occupations?

It has been argued that the sex segregation of the labor market reflects personality sex differences. So far, few studies have used actual occupational titles. This study aims to tackle these limitations as well as to expand previous research by operationalizing occupations as occupational field (i.e. STEM vs. Non-STEM) and as occupational orientation (i.e. Prediger’s people-things dimension). We replicated our analyses in three independent samples (Estonia, China, and UK) and, although there was no evidence that personality sex differences mirrored personality differences between occupational fields or between occupational orientations, results suggested that personality could be more relevant when choosing occupational orientation rather than occupational field.

Title IX

Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in education, is well known for transforming girls’ and women’s sports. Since its early history, Title IX has embraced a system of sex segregation in sports. However, Title IX’s “separate but equal” regime is increasingly being challenged by feminists who argue that it has not done enough to eliminate gender disparities and inequities in sport and is fundamentally incompatible with the inclusion and fair treatment of transgender and nonbinary athletes. The first two sections of this article trace the history of Title IX as it has been applied to sports. The article then canvasses the feminist arguments for and against sex segregation in sports and makes the case that a regime of strict sex separation is no longer the best strategy for assuring girls’ and women’s success in sports and dislodging pernicious stereotypes of women’s inferior athleticism.

Using mobility networks to understand occupational sex segregation

Decades after the beginning of the gender revolution, most women and men still work in sex-typed occupations. This is a primary driver of the gender wage gap. Research describing the patterns of occupational sex segregation focuses on supposedly innate job characteristics that match gender stereotypical abilities and preferences, such as the use of mathematical skills or social skills, on income and status differences between occupations, and on organizational job characteristics, for example, the need to work long hours. However, beyond such occupational attributes, sex segregation is hypothesized to exhibit emergent patterns that are linked to the interdependent job mobility of women and men, in particular, men selectively leaving feminizing occupations. Developing new tools inspired by statistical network research, and using representative, longitudinal data that contain detailed occupational mobility from the UK between 2000 and 2008, this replacement mechanism is analyzed. I show that 19-28% of observed sex segregation is linked to this emergent phenomenon in a statistical model that disentangles the various predictors of the allocation of women and men to different occupations. This makes it the most important predictor of segregation in contrast to concurrently modelled explanations based on occupational characteristics.