Abstract
This research was carried out between 1985 and 1989 against a background of concern that, in spite of the contemporary education system technically being open equally to both girls and boys, girls were nevertheless being denied full equality of opportunity within it. It set out to investigate the claims of sex stereotyping in schools and subsequent female fear of success by measuring pupils' attitudes towards high academic achievement in girls. The research was carried out in different types of school, mixed or single sex. However, the social and academic background of the schools concerned; the development of pupils' sex-role identities, academic self-concepts and global selfesteem; and their attitudes to (a) high achievers in general and (b) women's rights and roles in contemporary society, were also considered as variables. A total of 1823 pupils took part in all, 409 in the pilot study and the remaining 1414 in the main investigation. In the main study, the research was carried out among pupils in years eight, nine and ten, ranging in age from 12 to 15 years, attending six city comprehensive schools. It was discovered that 'school type' as a variable did, in fact, produce a significant effect on the major scales in favour of single-sex schools. Pupils from single-sex schools of both types were significantly less negative towards the concept of female achievement than pupils from coeducational establishments. Furthermore, girls from girls-only schools were significantly less traditional than their counterparts in the mixed-sex system in their attitudes towards women's rights and their roles in contemporary society. Boys as a group, however, regardless of type or background of school attended, were uniformly more traditional in their attitudes to female roles in society. School background did not prove to be a major significant influence and neither did the age of pupils, but the strength of pupils' sex-role identity did have some effect. A major conclusion, therefore, must be that the findings do indeed support the theory that the mixed-sex system of education actively perpetuates the major sex stereotypes held by society at large. And that this, in turn, detrimentally affects the equality of educational opportunity for girl pupils within such establishments.

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