Coeducation

Coeducation, education of both sexes in the same schools and classes. While coeducation in the primary grades became common in Protestant Europe after the Reformation, it was not introduced at higher educational levels until much later. In 18th- and 19th-century America, any tendency toward a double system of secondary schooling was offset by prohibitive cost. Now the majority of accredited colleges and universities in the United States are coeducational.