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Coeducation is the integrated education of men and women. Before coeducation became predominant, most important institutions of higher education restricted their enrollment to men. Women were educated in all-female schools, if at all.
Coeducation in the United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, some schools are coeducational, others are boys-only and girls-only. Many previously single-sex schools have begun to accept both genders in the past few decades, for example Clifton College began to accept girls in 1987.
Coeducation in the United States
The first coeducational institution of higher education in the United States was Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. The agitation for coeducation by feminists grew through the American Civil War era, and by 1872 there were 97 American universities admitting women. Some institutions refused to integrate fully, but were willing to educate women in closely associated schools—a variation on the later "separate but equal" standard of racially segregated schools followed in some parts of the US. Examples of this parallelism include Radcliffe College at Harvard University in Massachusetts and Barnard College at Columbia University in New York. A variety of gender-segregated women's institutions were founded, notably the Seven Sisters. Some of these are now coeducational (e.g. Vassar), while others are not (e.g. Wellesley).
It should be noted that many or most "common schools"—the neighborhood, village and county schools that educated most Americans through the end of the 19th century—were coeducational from the beginning, in part because small school districts could not fund separate educational facilities for girls and boys.
Remarkably, after a little more than than a century in the mainstream higher education system of the United States, American women now earn the majority of bachelor's degrees and account for 60% of the enrolled undergraduate population.
U.S. institutions of higher education coeducational from establishment
Years U.S. educational institutions became coeducational
- Schools that were previously all-female are listed in italics.
Coeducation in Canada
Years Canadian educational institutions became coeducational
Coeducation in China
The first coeducational institution of higher learnings in China was the Nanjing Higher Normal Institute. It later renamed National Southeastern University in 1921, National Central University in 1928 and Nanjing University in 1949. For thousands years in China, education especially higher education was the privilege of men. In the 1910s women's universities were established such as Ginling Women's University, Peking Girl's Higher Normal School, but coeducation was still prohibited. Tao Xingzhi, the Chinese advocator of coeducation, proposed The Audit Law for Women Students(《規定女子旁聽法案》) on the meeting of Nanjing Higher Normal Institute hold on December 7th, 1919. He also proposed the university to recruit girl students. They were supported by the president Guo Bingwen, academic director Liu Boming and such famous professors Lu Zhiwei, Yang Xingfo, and were opposed by many famous men of the time. Finally, the meeting passed the law and decided to recruit women students next year. Nanjing Higher Normal Institute (now Nanjing University) enrolled the earliest 8 coeducational Chinese women students in 1920. In the same year Peking University also began to allow women audit students. Since then, more and more Chinese university became coeducational. The most famous girl students of Nanjing University or of Chinese universities may be Chien-Shiung Wu.
In mainland China, there were many girl schools and several women colleges during the ROC. After 1949 since the CCP controlled mainland China, almost all schools and universities became coeducational in the PRC. In recent years new girl schools and women colleges again emerged.
External links
See also: List of current and historical women's universities and colleges
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