1st Edition
The Reform of Girls' Secondary and Higher Education in Victorian England A Study of Elites and Educational Change
Originally published in 1987, this title was first submitted as a doctoral dissertation at the University of California, Berkeley in 1974. Completed just as the years of expansion in higher education were drawing to a close, it reflects the growing doubts of the period as to the ability of formal education provision alone to effect major changes in the distribution of socio-economic privilege at the group level, whether as between the sexes, classes, or ethnic groups.
Reforms in women’s education had traditionally been dealt with as a small part of the women’s emancipation movement. This book approaches the education reforms in a different way and begins with the question of which social groups participated in the movement. Seen from this point of view, a primary interest of the reforms is the function they served in promoting a redefinition of the status and roles of a social elite.
Preface. Introduction. 1. Some Socio-Economic and Demographic Perspectives on the Movement for Women’s Educational Reform 2. The Organizers and their Organizations I: Organizational Structure and Strategies 3. The Organizers and their Organizations II: The Organizers’ Backgrounds and Aspirations 4. The Lady-Teachers I: The Lady-Teacher and the Family-like School 5. The Lady-Teachers II: The Impulse to Reform 6. The Headmistresses I: The Public School and the Professional Woman 7. The Headmistresses II: Professional Influences 8. The Headmistresses III: Two Professional Emphases 9. The Students I: Status Concerns and Family Relations 10. The Students II: The Public Schools and Colleges and Public Life. Notes. Bibliography. Index.
Biography
Joyce Senders Pedersen