Though the roots of single-sex schooling extend back to the very origins of education in this country, in this century the institution has been an easy target for criticism - the common perception being that coeducation is obviously better because it's more equal and democratic. By the mid-1980s this logic had become so accepted that most single-sex schools had disappeared, and, in fact, few people cared. To investigate the form of single-sex education, Michael Ruhlman returned to University School in Cleveland, Ohio, the boys' day school he had graduated from more than a dozen years earlier. Through an academic year spent shadowing its controversial headmaster, lively teachers, and the boys themselves, Ruhlman untangles the issues and constructs a narrative of both the world of single-sex education and the world of one school, which inevitably raises questions regarding school culture and environment, questions of moral judgment, rigor, and the importance of language - issues fundamental to the education of all children.