Gender and Education in the United States

Paper Summary:

The women's movement and educational reform movements occurred in tandem at the beginning of the 20th century. The impact of these social movements, occasionally conjoined, occasionally at odds, has consumed the interest of many educational historians. In this paper, the author examines, discusses and reviews five works dealing with the subject of feminism and education in the United States.

From the Paper:

"Education of women alone cannot be seen as synonymous with social liberation, according to Nash, rather what that education represents and contains must be analyzed and contextualized. These early American's young ladies' educations became a defining component of the middle class in opposition to the values they saw defining working classes. "The newly forming middle class defined itself against the urban poor, which it typed as 'ignorant, careless, [and] rife with immorality," while "the middle class valued moderation, a mode of behavior that they thought separated them both from the licentiousness of the poor," as poor women often worked and were denied learning in the non-technical, non-vocational, arts, languages, and literature. Moderation in education, ensuring that young ladies possessed 'accomplishments' was deemed to be essential, although the aims of their education was not always comparable to that of their male middle-class counterparts."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Cremin, Lawrence A. American Education: The Metropolitan Experience, 1876-1980. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.
• Nash, Margaret A Women's Education in the United States, 1780-1840. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005
• Rousmaniere, Kate. City Teachers: Teaching and School Reform in Historical Perspective. New York: Teachers College Press, 1997.
• Tyack, David B. The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education. Cambridge,Harvard University Press, 2007.
• Tyack, David B. & Elisabeth Hansot. Learning Together: A History of Coeducation in American Public Schools. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Publications, 1992.

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