Single-Sex Schooling: Friendships, Dating, and Sexual Orientation

Abstract

Single-sex schooling has been controversial for decades. The current study investigated the differences in friendships, dating, and past, present, and ideal sexual orientation, between 207 college students who attended single-sex secondary schools and 249 college students who attended coeducational secondary schools in Hong Kong, controlling for personal characteristics such as socioeconomic status. We found that, compared to graduates of coeducational schools, graduates of single-sex schools reported a different gender composition in intimate friendships favoring the same sex, less romantic involvement with other-sex close friends, older age at first date, fewer boyfriends or girlfriends, and more past same-sex sexuality. In contrast, we found no significant differences in the interactions with same-sex versus other-sex friends, most aspects of past or present dating engagement, or self-reported present or ideal sexual orientation. These findings give insight into the interpersonal outcomes of single-sex schooling and fill a gap in previous research which has focused on academic achievement and gender role stereotypes.

Appendices

Appendix A

Validity of Self-Reported Sexual Orientation

The validity of self-reported sexual orientation is examined using correlations with the number of older brothers in male participants. Consistent with predictions in the fraternal birth order effect (Blanchard, 1997; Blanchard & VanderLaan, 2015), male participants with same-sex sexuality reported significantly or marginally significantly more older brothers (and not older sisters or younger brothers or younger sisters) than male participants without same-sex sexuality (Table 5). In contrast, also consistent with predictions in the fraternal birth order effect, number of older brothers did not significantly relate to past or ideal sexual orientation in females (Table 5). These findings suggest good validity of self-reported sexual orientation in this sample.

Table 5 Ordinary least squares regression models using number of siblings to predict sexual orientation

Unless otherwise stated, all results reported here are pooled estimates aggregating analyses from 20 imputed datasets, using “mice” and “miceadds” packages in R (Robitzsch, Grund, & Henke, 2017; van Buuren & Groothuis-Oudshoorn, 2011).

Appendix B

Replication of Findings with Interactions

Table 6 presents replication analyses including the interaction between school type and gender. There were no significant interactions between school type and participant gender for all but one dependent variable, ps > .05 (Table 6). The only significant interaction predicting the dating experience of hanging around with both men and women became nonsignificant after controlling for demographic characteristics, B = − 0.75, SE = 0.46, p = .101.

Table 6 Replication of Findings using ANOVAs or logistic regression models with the interaction between school type and gender

Unless otherwise stated, all results reported here are pooled estimates aggregating analyses from 20 imputed datasets, using “mice” and “miceadds” packages in R (Robitzsch et al., 2017; van Buuren & Groothuis-Oudshoorn, 2011).