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All-girls schools may be more orderly, but they are also bastions of strict conformity in which non-feminine behaviour is ruthlessly stamped out, according to a Concordia University study that may have implications in the ongoing push for single-sex education in Canadian schools.

In the words of lead researcher Kate Drury, a classroom filled exclusively with girls leads to “more pressure to behave ‘like a girl.’”

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The finding runs in sharp contrast to the popular notion — much-espoused by single-sex education boosters — that all-girls schools are stereotype-free zones pumping out high numbers of women scientists, engineers and woodworkers.

“They’re probably giving boys too much credit,” said Concordia psychology professor William Bukowski, the study’s co-author. “What this paper is telling us is that it’s girls who enforce the female sex role.”

It’s girls who enforce the female sex role

The study, which was recently published in the behavioral science journal Sex Roles, was conducted among 469 fourth, fifth and sixth grade girls in the Colombian cities of Bogotá and Barranquilla.