Poglądy na koedukacje w szkole polskiej w latach 1920-1939

Abstrakt

There has been a vast debate in Polish pedagogical literature around the issue of coeducation in school since the beginning of the twentieth century. One of the main reasons why co-education was established was material reason. The economic crisis did not allow for two secondary schools, for girls and boys, to be set up, especially in small towns. Since there was a need to educate women on a par with men, mixed schools were deemed necessary. An additional positive aspect was that they could better equipped and ensured a better development than it is in the case of two separate schools. They were not something one should be afraid of, for – as the advocates of common education and instruction of both sexes claimed – the experience of other countries in this sphere had proven how perfect the co-educative system was. The United States – the homeland of co-education – would be quoted as an example, as well as Finland, Sweden, Norway, England and other countries. It is in these countries that the system became very popular and was regarded as natural and expedient by the society. Polish education should be based on it.

The necessity to keep up continuity in this respect spoke for co-education too. The majority of primary schools was for both sexes. The advocates of co-educative schools claimed that due to the variety of interests and experiences in girls and boys there disappeared the one-sided character of observation. Co-education was perceived as giving enormous intellectual, formative and moral profits. The advocates maintained that co-educative schools excelled all other schools in each of the aforementioned aspects. Co-education was thought to have conditioned a proper development of society, being on guard of its morality. The staff of the mixed schools claimed that the moral standard there was so high as nowhere else.

The arguments of the opponents of co-education was based to a large extent on the experience of the Catholic Church. The co-educative system was thought, in view of history and of its ideas, to be a child of 18th- and 19th-century rationalism. Now rationalists misconceived the equality between man and woman.

Another contradiction to the Catholic standpoint was perceived in grasping co-education from

a purely practical point of view. A approach to co-education merely from the angle of short-term profits was condemned. The differences in the psychological development of male and female youth were an equally essential and widely discussed argument on the part of the opponents of education. In order to achieve as best as possible results at school one was supposed to abide by the principles of separate education and formation of the male and female youth.