Have we got it right?

While studying Psychology in 2015, I first came across something called the 'Jigsaw classroom' (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2014). In 1971 Elliot Aronson developed the 'Jigsaw classroom' to encourage social cohesion after desegregation of American schools. He found that if students were placed in mixed groups and assigned separate elements of the whole task, and where these tasks relied on each other for the success of the whole, an interesting thing happened; they developed empathy towards each other developing a cooperative egalitarian environment.

This experiment focused on racial cohesion, but the same applies to considerations of males and females. If we are to create a functional egalitarian world, then should we not be aiming to form our classrooms with total inclusion?

The Nigerian Country Office (2007) describes succinctly the barriers to Girls' Education: "poverty and economic issues, early marriage and teenage pregnancy, inadequate school infrastructure and cultural and religious misinterpretations" (p. 1). They further have undertaken many interventions under the GEP (Girls' Education Project), especially to strengthen girls' only schools.

Perhaps change is yet to come, but the divide created by boys and girls only schools, which still exist in policy, presents a discourse of accepted segregation.

When we know that to truly build a holistic community we need to enmesh students in collective cooperation,

then how can we build long term acceptance of girls' empowerment when only girls' are the ones who are taught to accept this?

When boys are taught along side girls, with an egalitarian acceptance of Girls' Education, we have a functional education that promotes social cohesion and peace.

If you wish to discuss this further, please post your ideas or resource links on Y.OUR Forum.

Aronson, E., Wilson, T., & Akert, R. (2014). Social Psychology. P. 420 accessed at: https://archive.org/details/Social_Psychology_7th_edition_by_Elliot_Aronson_Timothy_D._Wilson_R_M._Akert

UNICEF (2007). Girls' Education Fact Sheet. Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/wcaro/WCARO_Nigeria_Factsheets_GirlsEducation.pdf