Choosing a single·sex school: Elite cloning motive or queue jumping ambition?

Abstract

Headmasters and headmistresses, who are the direct managers of our secondary boarding Schools, each year go through stressful pressures from parents who besiege their offices seeking admission for their children. Those who manage single-sex secondary boarding schools, as observed. tend to undergo more of the pressures. This study shows that both elites and non-elites want these single-sex boarding schools for their children because the fonnet see such schools as a means of socially reproducing themselves, while the latter see these schools as a means of upward social mobility through their children. The implications of the findings for educational management/ policy are discussed.