"In the nineteenth century, women's colleges provided many women with access to higher education, yet Susan B. Anthony and other women connected to the women's rights movement favored coeducation. In the late twentieth century, at a time that many single-sex institutions became coeducational, research has indicated the benefits for women of single-sex education
Separate by Degree compares the experiences of women students, in the past as well as in contemporary times, in four small, private liberal arts colleges - a women's college, a coordinate college, a long-time coeducational college, and a recently coeducational college - to determine how well women have fared with varying degrees of separation from male students."--Jacket
Includes bibliographical references and index
pt. 1. The historical background of women's education in four liberal arts colleges. "Consecrated" to the "ideal of true womanhood": Wells College's beginnings ; "Ladies on the scene": women enter Middlebury College ; "Free from the drawbacks ... observed in co-education": the coordinate college, William Smith ; Progress and setbacks: women students' experiences at three colleges, 1915-1965 ; Women's struggle for equality continues: the story of Kirkland College -- pt. 2. The single-sex versus coeducation debate: experiences of women students at Wells, Middlebury, William Smith, and Hamilton Colleges. Separate or together? Myths, facts, and research on how girls and women should be educated ; The class of '88 enters college ; College experiences and changes in attitudes and aspirations of the class of '88 ; Alumnae's experiences and the four colleges in the 1990s ; Conclusion: The future of separatism
