Women And The Teaching Profession

Examines how the teacher feminisation debate applies in developing countries. Drawing on the experiences of Dominica, Lesotho, Samoa, Sri Lanka and India, it provides a strong analytical understanding of the role of female teachers in the expansion of education systems, and the surrounding gender equality issues.

This unique volume addresses issues of gender in education by examining the work experiences and policies affecting women and teaching in Latin America, North America and parts of Europe, with a focus on the social construction of women teachers.

A rich and fascinating portrait of education life in America between 1830 and 1920, Woman's "True" Profession is an indispensable contribution to our understanding of the teaching profession. "Women have always been teachers." So begins this second edition of Nancy Hoffman's classic history of women and the teaching profession in the United States. With this revised collection of her own essays and the writings of early women teachers, Hoffman offers a rich and fascinating portrait of educational life in America. The documents that enrich this volume include autobiographical writings of teachers who practiced between 1830 and 1920. Hoffman's essays probe the socioeconomic factors that led women into teaching, analyze the roles that women teachers played in effecting social change, and assess the impact of urbanization and bureaucracy on teaching. This second edition greatly expands on and revises the central focus of the original book, drawing on several decades of feminist research and analysis that was not available when the first edition was published. In addition, it includes a thoroughly reconsidered account of the relationship between race and education, together with archival materials written by Black women teachers that were not known at the time of the first edition. A book that explores the full range of contributions, challenges, successes, and frustrations that marked these early teacher's careers, Woman's "True" Profession is an indispensable contribution to our understanding of the teaching profession.

Presenting a comprehensive look at twentieth-century collaborations between female teachers and the women's movement, this volume highlights the feminist ideologies, strategies, and rationales pursued by teachers in search of better workplaces. Carter chronicles the evolution of rights for female teachers, covering such important social and economic topics as suffrage, equal pay for equal work, the right to marry and take maternity leaves, access to administrative positions, the right to lobby and bargain collectively, and the right to participate in political and social reform movements outside the workplace. A vivid account of the leadership roles teachers played in the women's movement, this book clarifies the importance of feminist ideologies in shaping the strategies and rationales educators used to transform their profession. This book is a bold contribution to the history of working women.

In post–World War II Canada, black women’s positions within the teaching profession served as sites of struggle and conflict as the nation worked to address the needs of its diversifying population. From their entry into teachers’ college through their careers in the classroom and administration, black women educators encountered systemic racism and gender barriers at every step. So they worked to change the system. Using oral narratives to tell the story of black access and education in Ontario between the 1940s and the 1980s, Schooling the System provides textured insight into how issues of race, gender, class, geographic origin, and training shaped women’s distinct experiences within the profession. By valuing women’s voices and lived experiences, Funké Aladejebi illustrates that black women, as a diverse group, made vital contributions to the creation and development of anti-racist education in Canada. As cultural mediators within Ontario school systems, these women circumvented subtle and overt forms of racial and social exclusion to create resistive teaching methods that centred black knowledges and traditions. Within their wider communities and activist circles, they fought to change entrenched ideas about what Canadian citizenship should look like. As schools continue to grapple with creating diverse educational programs for all Canadians, Schooling the System is a timely excavation of the meaningful contributions of black women educators who helped create equitable policies and practices in schools and communities.

Seminar paper from the year 2000 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2 (B), University of Kassel (Anglistics), course: New Feminism, 27 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: From the mid-19th century up to the outbreak of the war in August 1914 the suffrage campaign had attained the size and the status of a mass movement, riveting the attention of the British public. During the wartimes the activities of suffragists came to a halt, and a new, “domestic ideology“ emerged. When in early 1918 the Parliament granted the vote for women over the age of thirty, as a gesture of recognition for women’s contribution to the war effort, British feminists felt the neccessity to fight for a deeper, a more essential reformation in society. New feminist organizations were created, laws improving the status of mothers were passed and a passionate debate over the nature of feminism had begun. “But by 1930 feminism seemed much less a threat to traditional structures” than during the wartimes and the postwar period. How could it be that such a big movement like the suffrage campaign had been so powerful and finally disappeared, considering that “interwar feminism trapped women in the cult of domesticity from which earlier feminists had tried to free themselves”? Why should a woman choose to enter the teaching profession in the first half of the twentieth century? Teaching offered a large number of attractions as a job for women. Professional teaching involved the notion of a career, a life's work after a specific training, open only to those of a sufficient academic capacity. See: Teaching young children was said to be: "...one of the best forms of reconstruction work. The care of the children brings the teacher into closer touch with their mothers, who often come to her for advice in any and every subject: thus she may be a means of furthering the social betterment of the homes and the country." (Students' Careers Association, Careers, p.15. Also see Board of Education, Training of Teachers, p.40) Women teachers became confident because of their academic success, their professional aspirations and their teacher education, which gave them a sense that they were part of an elite, especially a part of a female elite. Elementary and secondary school teachers were different in their routes into the teaching profession: Women who taught in elementary schools usually came from the intelligent working class or the lower middle class and underwent their education in a training college while secondary school teachers usually came from middle class and were university educated. [...]

Through qualitative research methods, this book engages in a holistic understanding of cultural, economic, and institutional forces that interact to produce the underrepresentation of women as school teachers in four sub-Saharan African countries. Comparative case studies at the national level, using a common research design, show that teaching, despite being an attractive civil service job, offers low salaries and many challenges, especially when it takes place in rural areas. Combining professional duties with demanding family responsibilities further diminishes women’s ability to stay in the teaching profession. The studies in this book attempt to bridge research findings with policy by developing action plans in cooperation with ministries of education of the respective countries. Women Teachers in Africa will be of interest to academic researchers, undergraduate and postgraduate students in the relevant fields, as well as development professionals, aid agency staff and education policy experts.

How has feminism influenced contemporary educational practices? Is feminism relevant to today's teachers? Feminism and the Classroom Teacher undertakes a feminist analysis of the work and everyday realities of the school teacher, providing evidence that feminism is still relevant as a way of thinking about the social work and as a lived reality. Providing a unique contribution to the literature in the area of gender and education, the authors' objective is to articulate the educational discourses of gender - how gender is constructed, performed and sustained through discourse and material practices. The overall aim of the book is to ascertain the extent to which women teachers specifically, and the feminist project more generally, have contributed to theoretical understandings and practical accomplishments of teaching.