Social and Cultural Stratification in Women's Higher Education: Barnard College and Teachers College, 1898-1912

In this article, Linda Eisenmann examines the role and impact of Barbara Solomon's now classic text in women's educational history, In the Company of Educated Women: A History of Women and Higher Education in America. Eisenmann analyzes how Solomon's book influenced, defined, and in some ways limited the field of women's educational history. She shows how current historical research — such as the study of normal schools and academies — grew out of Solomon's work. She points out where the book is innovative and indispensable and where it disappoints us as teachers and scholars in the 1990s. Eisenmann criticizes Solomon for placing too much emphasis on women's access to higher education, thereby ignoring the importance of wider historical and educational influences such as economics, women's occupational choices, and the treatment of women in society at large. Finally, Eisenmann examines the state of subsequent research in women's higher educational history. She urges researchers to investigate beyond the areas defined by Solomon's work and to assess the impact of these neglected subjects on women's experiences in education.

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Educated To Death? Women’s Higher Education, Reproductive Health, And The Scientific Method In The United States, 1870-1900

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal ◽

10.24968/2693-244x.1.1.3 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 72-93

Author(s):

Eleanor Naiman

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Scientific Method ◽

The United States ◽

Individual Treatment ◽

Women's College ◽

Quantitative Studies ◽

Medical Associations ◽

White Middle Class ◽

Wide Range ◽

Women's Higher Education

From 1870-1890, American gynecologists positioned themselves at the center of debates about women’s education. Gynecologists manipulated social anxiety about shifting demographics and falling birthrates among white middle class women in order to legitimate their emerging discipline. In doing so, they couched American understandings of infertility in a politics of blame and demonized women for their inability to reproduce. Although doctors’ conversations about “sterility” primarily took place within the pages of journals published by all-male medical associations, many women engaged in this debate and challenged medical authority in the pages of popular magazines and newspapers. Female doctors, teachers, scholars, women’s college administrators, and their male allies employed a wide range of rhetorical strategies in their responses to male doctors’ theories. They reframed the debate over higher education and sterility into a discussion of the failings of patriarchal gender norms and the importance of objective scientific inquiry. They did so as the medical profession’s commitment to anecdotal evidence and individual treatment faced pressure from the emerging fields of quantitative studies, epidemiology, and medical statistics. A debate that began with a few vocal doctors with passionate but largely unsubstantiated claims had grown to incorporate discussions about scientific method, women’s rights, and female autonomy.

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"A College for Women, or Something Like It": Bedford College and the Women's Higher Education Movement, 1849-1900

10.15760/etd.209 ◽

2000 ◽

Author(s):

Megan Brown

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Education Movement ◽

Women's Higher Education

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The “Perils” of Gender Coeducation

Reparation and Reconciliation ◽

10.5149/northcarolina/9781469630687.003.0005 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Christi M. Smith

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

American Association ◽

Sexual Politics ◽

University Women ◽

Single Sex ◽

Quality Of Higher Education ◽

Private Organization ◽

Women's Higher Education ◽

First Time

Chapter 5 explores the intersection of racial and sexual politics in structuring various forms of higher education for women. A particular private organization—the Association of Collegiate Alumnae (ACA), now the American Association of University Women—played an important role in structuring women’s higher education. For the first time, the ACA initiated an evaluative campaign to measure the quality of higher education opportunities. This produced the first systematic efforts to commensurate educational offerings across colleges. Like contemporary rankings, this system exerted discipline on both coeducational and single-sex colleges.

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Migration, Modernization, and Social Change

Dhaka's Changing Landscape ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190121112.003.0008 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 249-279

Author(s):

Rita Afsar ◽

Mahabub Hossain

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Social Change ◽

Gender Roles ◽

Labour Market ◽

Division Of Labour ◽

Actual Situation ◽

Attitudes And Practices ◽

Women's Higher Education ◽

Attitudinal Changes ◽

Gender Division Of Labour

Chapter 8 unlocks the inter-relationship between migration and modernization by analysing attitudinal changes associated with urban living such as attitudes towards gender division of labour, women’s higher education, and participation in the labour market, to generate broader understanding on women’s empowerment. It also assesses whether, how, and to what extent gender and generational relations are redefined and impacted in relation to migration. It does so by analysing gender roles, attitudes, and aspirations regarding major institutions and practices including marriage, divorce, dowry, and inheritance that govern gender relations. It presents the actual situation of the members of these families on each of these accounts to examine whether there is consistency between what they think and what they practice. In this process, it identifies the factors that are conducive towards progressive attitudes and practices, and those which impede progress, the key determinant of qualitative changes and a migrants’ prospects for a better future.

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