The gendered politics of historical writing inHistory of Education

This article looks through the lens of the gendered politics of historical writing at the main forms and direction of scholarship on gender in History of Education since its publication. It discusses how social, women's, feminist and gender history has been treated in the journal and how developing approaches around the body, space, materiality, and the construction of the archive, are informing the production of new knowledge around gender. The article argues that History of Education has contributed to ways in which gender has been imagined in historical reconstruction and analysis. As the gendered politics of history has been treated in the journal, gender analysis has contributed to the development of history of education as discipline. The article concludes that in re-writing and re-theorising traditional educational history, the radical openness of the future of gender analysis lies in the continuing transformation of gender analysis itself. Keywords: GenderPoliticsHistory Notes 1Ruth Watts, 'Gendering the Story: Change in the History of Education', History of Education 34, no.3 (2005): 225-241. 2Christine Heward, 'Men and Women and the Rise of Professional Society: the Intriguing History of Teacher Educators', History of Education 22, no.1 (1993): 11-32. 3Here, I follow Rebecca Rogers, 'The Politics of Writing the History of French Girls' Education', History of Education Researcher 80 (2007): 136-145. I use 'political' in the sense of referring to who and what constitutes historical discourse. 4Susan Morgan, ed., The Feminist History Reader (London: Routledge, 2006), 2. I have drawn on Morgan's narrative in shaping the discussion that follows. 5Todd W. Reeser Masculinities in Theory: An Introduction (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), Kindle loc 143-2, 46-7. 6See also Rogers, 'History of French Girls' Education'. 7David Glover and Cora Kaplan, Genders (London: Routledge, 2000), xix. 8Jane Rendall, 'Uneven Developments: Women's History, Feminist History and Gender History in Great Britain', in K. Offen, R. Roach Pierson and J. Rendall, eds., Writing Women's History: International Perspectives (London: Macmillan, 1991), 45-51; June Purvis, 'From "Women Worthies" to Poststructuralism? Debate and Controversy in Women's History in Britain', in J. Purvis, ed., Women's History in Britain, 1850-1945 (London: UCL Press, 1995), 1-22. 9Morgan, Femininst History Reader, 2,4. 10Pavla Miller, 'Gender and Patriarchy in Historical Sociology' in Handbook of Historical Sociology, ed. Gerard Delanty and Engin F. Isin (London: Sage, 2003), 337. 11As, for example, in social history accounts that take gender identity for granted (see below). 12This distinction draws on Morgan, Femininst History Reader, 13. 13David A. Coppock, 'Responsibility as a Prerequisite of Moral Character: the Social and Occupational Mobility of Pupil Teachers in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries', History of Education 26, no. 2 (1997): 165-186. 14Joan Wallach Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 22. 15Miller, 'Gender and Patriarchy'. 16June Purvis '"We can no longer pretend that sex stratification does not exist, nor that it exists but is unimportant" (M. Eichler). A reply to Keith Flett', History of Education 18, no. 2 (1989): 147-152. 17Purvis, 'From "Women Worthies" to Poststructuralism?' 18Purvis, '"We Can No Longer Pretend"'. 19Linda McDowell, Gender, Identity and Place: Understanding Feminist Geographies (London: Polity Press, 1999), 15-20. 20Michael Roper and John Tosh, 'Introduction: Historians and the Politics of Masculinity', in Michael Roper and John Tosh, eds., Manful Assertions. Masculinities in Britain Since 1800 (London: Routledge, 1991). 21Meera Kosambi, 'A Window in the Prison-House: Women's Education and the Politics of Social Reform in Nineteenth Century Western India', History of Education 29, no. 5 (2000): 429-442. 22McDowell, Gender, Identity and Place, 18-20. 23Jane McDermid, 'Place the Book in Their Hands: Grace Paterson's Contribution to the Health and Welfare Policies of the School Board of Glasgow, 1885-1906', History of Education 36, no. 6 (2007): 697-713. 24Roper and Tosh, 'Introduction' in Manful Assertions. 25Paul Elliott and Stephen Daniels, 'Pestalozzianism, Natural History and Scientific Education in Nineteenth Century England: The Pestalozzian Institution at Worksop, Nottinghamshire', History of Education, 34, no. 2 (2005): 295-313. 26James A. Mangan and James Walvin, 'Introduction', in James Mangan and James A. Walvin, eds., Manliness and Morality: Middle-Class Masculinity in Britain and America, 1800-1940 (Manchester: Manchester University Press), (1987), 1-2. 27Richard Aldrich, 'Education for Survival: An Historical Perspective', History of Education, 39, no. 1 (2010): 1-14. 28Mangan and Walvin, 'Introduction', 2. 29Linda Kerber, 'Separate Spheres: Female Worlds, Women's Place: The Rhetoric of Women's History', Journal of American History 75, no. 1 (1988): 9-93. 30Morgan, Feminist History Reader, 7-8. 31Amanda Vickery, 'Golden Age to Separate Spheres: A Review of the Categories and Chronology of English Women's History', Historical Journal 36, no. 2 (1993): 383-414. 32A political organisation which fought on the Nationalist side in the Spanish Civil War. 33Jessamy Harvey, 'Domestic Queens and Warrior Wives: Imperial Role-Models for Spanish Schoolgirls During the Early Francoist Regime (1940s-50s)', History of Education 37, no. 2 (2008): 277-293. 34Elizabeth Edwards, 'The Culture of Femininity in Women's Teacher Training Colleges, 1900-1950' History of Education 22, no. 3 (1993): 277-88. 35Elizabeth Edwards, 'Women Principals, 1900-1960: Gender and Power', History of Education 29, no. 5 (2000): 405-414. 36Morgan, Feminist History Reader, 19, 25. 37Purvis, 'From "Women Worthies" to Poststructuralism?' 38Mary Maynard and June Purvis, eds., New Frontiers in Women's Studies: Knowledge, Identity and Nationalism (London: UCL Press, 1996), 11, 12. 39Linda M. Perkins, 'The Role of Education in the Development of Black Feminist Thought, 1860-1920', History of Education 22, no. 3 (1993): 11; Maynard and Purvis, New Frontiers in Women's Studies, 11. 40Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton University Press, 1992), 10. For an overview of colonialism and education see Joyce Goodman, Gary McCulloch and William Richardson, '"Empires Overseas" and "Empires at Home": Postcolonial and Transnational Perspectives on Social Change in the History of Education', Paedagogica Historica 45, no. 6 (2009): 695-706; and for the UK see Ruth Watts, 'Education, Empire and Social Change in Nineteenth Century England', Paedagogica Historica 45, no. 6 (2009): 773-786. 41Thomas Babington Macaulay, Speeches on Politics and Literature (London: J.M.Dent, 1909), 125, 109, quoted in Catherine Hall, 'Making Colonial Subjects: Education in the Age of Empire', History of Education 37, no. 6 (2008): 784, 787. 42Patricia Pok-kwan Chiu, '"A Position of Usefulness": Gendering History of Girls' Education in Colonial Hong Kong (1852-1890s)', History of Education 37, no. 6 (2008): 789-805. 43Kay Morris Matthews and Kuni Jenkins, '"Whose Country Is It Anyway?" The Construction of a New Identity Through Schooling for Māori in Aotearoa/New Zealand', History of Education 28, no. 3 (1999): 339-350. 44Morgan, Feminist History Reader, 27. 45Maynard and Purvis, New Frontiers in Women's Studies, 3. 46Angela Woollacott, 'Australian Women's Metropolitan Activism: From Suffrage to Imperial Vanguard, to Commonwealth Feminism', in Women's Suffrage in the British Empire: Citizenship, Nation and Race, eds. Christopher Fletcher, Philippa Levine and Laura E. Nym Mayhall (London: Routledge, 2000), 191-206. 47Lyn Trethewey and Kay Whitehead, 'Beyond Centre and Periphery: Transnationalism in Two Teacher/Suffragette's Work', History of Education 32, no. 5 (2003): 547-559. 48Following Morgan, I use the term postcolonial to denote continuous disengagement from colonialism as a historical dynamic. Morgan, Feminist History Reader, 31. 49Ibid., 13. 50McDowell, Gender, Identity and Place, 22. 51See Joan Wallach Scott, 'Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis', in Scott, Gender and the Politics of History, 28-50. 52Morgan, Feminist History Reader, 13. 53Joan Wallach Scott, 'Experience', in Feminists Theorise the Political, ed. Joan Wallach Scott (London: Routledge, 1992), 37. 54'Judith Butler', http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-butl.htm (accessed 18 January 2010). 55Valerie Walkerdine, Schoolgirl Fictions (London: Verso, 1990), 21. 56Michèle Cohen, 'Language and Meaning in a Documentary Source: Girls' Curriculum From the Late Eighteenth Century to the Schools Inquiry Commission, 1868', History of Education 34, no. 1 (2005): 585-595. 57Morgan, Feminist History Reader, 11. 58Mark Freeman, 'From "Character-Training" to "Personal Growth": the Early History of Outward Bound 1941-1965', History of Education 40, no. 1 (2010): 21-43. 59Carrie Paechter, 'Reconceptualising the Gendered Body: Learning and Constructing Masculinities and Femininities in School', Gender and Education 18, no. 3 (2006): 121-135; Catherine Burke, 'Editorial', History of Education 36, no. 2 (2007): 165-171. 60Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (London: Routledge, 1993). 61Stephanie Spencer, 'A Uniform Identity: Schoolgirl Snapshots and the Spoken Visual', History of Education 36, no. 2 (2007): 227-246. 62M. Foucault, The History of Sexuality (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966, 1988 edition), 43. 63Kay Whitehead, 'Vocation, Career and Character in Early Twentieth-Century Women Teacher's Work in City Schools', History of Education 34, no. 6 (2005): 579-597. 64Freeman, 'From "Character Training" to "Personal Growth". 65David Limond, 'Only Talk in the Staffroom: "Subversive" Teaching in a Scottish School, 1939-40', History of Education 29, no. 3 (2000): 239-252. 66Geert Thyssen, 'Visualizing Discipline of the Body in a German Open-Air School (1923-1939): Retrospection and Introspection', History of Education 36, no. 2 (2007): 237-264. 67Particularly for Irish women's education: Judith Harford, 'The Movement for the Higher Education of Women in Ireland: Gender Equality or Denominational Rivalry?' History of Education 34, no. 5 (2005): 497-516; idem, 'An Experiment in the Development of Social Networks for Women: Women's Colleges in Ireland in the Nineteenth Century', Paedagogica Historica 43, no. 3 (2007): 365-381; Deirdre Raftery and Catherine Nowlan-Roebuck, 'Convent Schools and National Education in Nineteenth-Century Ireland: Negotiating a Place Within a Non-denominational System, History of Education 36, no. 3 (2007): 353-365. 68Frederik Herman, Angelo van Gorp, Frank Simon, Marc Depaepe, 'The School Desk: From Concept to Object', History of Education 40, no. 1 (2011): 97-117. 69Caroline Bowden, 'Community Space and Cultural Transmission: Formation and Schooling in English Enclosed Convents in the Seventeenth Century, History of Education 34, no. 4 (2005): 365-386. Note also the importance of landscape to girls' education, see Joyce Goodman, 'A Cloistered Ethos? Landscapes of Learning and English Secondary Schools for Girls: An Historical Perspective', Paedagogica Historica 41, nos. 4-5 (2005): 589-603. 70Tanya Fitzgerald, 'Archives of Memory and Memories of Archive: CMS Women's Letters and Diaries 1823-35, History of Education 34, no. 6 (2005): 657-674. 71Annemieke van Drenth, 'Doctors, Philanthropists and Teachers as 'True' Ventriloquists? Introduction to Special Issue on the History of Special Education', History of Education 34, no. 2 (2005): 107-117. 72Inderpal Grewal, A. Gupta and A. Ong, 'Introduction: Asian Transnationalities', Positions 7, no. 3 (2000): 653. 73Joyce Goodman, 'Social Change and Secondary Schooling for Girls in the "Long 1920s": European Engagements', History of Education 36, nos. 4-5 (2007): 497-513. For transnational histories of education see also Joyce Goodman, 'Working for Change Across International Borders: the Association of Headmistresses and Education for International Citizenship', Paedagogica Historica 43, no. 1 (2007): 165-180. 74Glenda Sluga, 'The Nation and Comparative Imagination', in Comparison and History, eds. Deborah Cohen and Maura O'Connor (New York: Routledge, 2004), 103-114. 75Mineke van Essen, 'Strategies of Women Teachers 1860-1920: Feminization of Dutch Elementary and Secondary Schools from a Comparative Perspective', History of Education 28, no. 4 (1999): 413-433. 76Deirdre Raftery, Jane McDermid and Gareth Elwyn Jones, 'Social Change and Education in Ireland, Scotland and Wales: Historiography on Nineteenth-century Schooling', History of Education 36, nos. 4-5 (2007): 447-463. For the use of comparative data by women in the inter-war period see Joyce Goodman, 'Cosmpolitan Women Educators, 1920-1939: Inside/Outside Activism and Abjection', Paedagogica Historica 46, nos. 1&2 (2010): 69-83. 77Morgan, Feminist History Reader, 37

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