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Full-Text Articles in History
Girls' Secondary Education In The Western World: From The 18th To The 20th Century (Book Review), Christopher Bischof
Girls' Secondary Education In The Western World: From The 18th To The 20th Century (Book Review), Christopher Bischof
History Faculty Publications
This edited collection traces the development of girls’ secondary education over three centuries in a way that highlights national peculiarities without losing sight of ideas and debates that cut across borders. Contributors follow very similar formats, exploring historiography and key themes: religion, coeducation, the ideal of domestic motherhood, and politics. The greatest single overarching theme is what the editors describe as “the dialectic between education as a conservative force and as a force for change as expressed in both democratic and authoritarian political agendas across Europe” (p. 2). Political battleground that it was, however, there emerges from the essays as …
Educating Women: Schooling And Identity In England And France, 1800-1867 (Book Review), Christopher Bischof
Educating Women: Schooling And Identity In England And France, 1800-1867 (Book Review), Christopher Bischof
History Faculty Publications
Christina de Bellaigue’s Educating Women: Schooling and Identity in England and France, 1800-1867 explores stereotypes about women’s boarding schools on both sides of the English-French Channel. In the process de Bellaigue identifies the basis in reality which many of the most widespread stereotypes had, including: the socially grasping schoolmistress; the schoolmistress as a gentlewoman fallen on hard times; the short-lived nature of many schools; the stress laid on the teaching of “accomplishments”; and the idea that preparing women for their domestic role was the ultimate goal of an education. However, she also simultaneously undermines these stereotypes by supplying nuance and …