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In America, all single-sex schools are private. But I've heard of some public single sex schools in other countries, so I was trying to account for that. However, I have no idea how common they are.

In response to [meg], I can at least try and give you a sense of the atmosphere (at my school, at least.)

It's surprisingly communal. The back-stabbing bitchiness is pretty minimal from what I can gather and despite the fact that I'm somewhat a loner, I can still pretty much talk to anyone in my class without feeling judged or unwelcome. But then again, that might be something specific to my school and the way they sort of "brought us up."

I would have to say that going to an all girls middle school was hell for everyone. I think that's when you get the back-stabbing and catfights to the umpteenth degree. If only they could make the school co-ed just for those three years. But then again, that probably wouldn't fix much. Middle school just generally sucks for everyone, I think.

Also, you bring up a good point about sheltering. There are SO many girls who hardly knew what a p***s even looked like until sex ed. But again, that's a result of parenting and not the school itself. I personally got the sex talk when I was six-years-old, but that's because I asked. Anyway, I think the sheltering is almost entirely a result of parenting. I know girls who go off and go help kids in South Africa with their family every summer and I know girls who just go off and party and catch STDs every weekend. So we seem to run the gammut of lifestyles and life experiences here. Sure, we may be a little slower in the socializing-with-males department, but I personally found that it was pretty easy to overcome that. But again, I'm only speaking from my own experiences here. Which leads me to wonder about how it seems that the population here hails prodominately from public schooling. Not that that really says anything about us here, but it's just an interesting point.