Gender and Education in 19th Century Britain

Final Thoughts...

1870(s)...an important year.

• The Industrial Revolution had a direct effect on education reform at this time. Britain needed a standard education system and a specialized workforce to be able to compete with rising trade powers like the United States and Germany
• Class and gender were two large social constraints affecting education reform. However, the growth of women's education by the end of the century from its almost nonexistance is remarkable, and placed the setting of the Women's Suffrage Movement.
• Ironically education's standardization had polarized class diffeences because of different access to education which, in turn, led ultimately to unequal job opportunity.

• Forster Education Act introduced secular, rate-supported elementary schools and over 2,000 school boards.
• Development of a new generation of grammar schools , even for girls where before education had consisted of institutional schools, religious schools, and private schools.
• Modernization of universities (i.e. Cambridge and Oxford) and the accepatnce of women into University.
• (Sometime shortly after) development of technical schools.

Education and Gender in 19th Century Britaion

Pros and Cons to Education

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• Church doesn't want to loose public funding its been receiving for educating the poor, and the influence they have over the youth.
• Aristocracy fear that education of the working class would lead to higher taxes and labour costs, and the spread of radical political ideas.
• Standardized Anglican Education was seen as a defense against the growth of Catholicism and other sects of Christianity.
• Welsh fear the extinction of their language.
• Recent reform in 1867 had given the power to vote more broadly.
• "Without an effective education system...how can we compete with America and Germany?"

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Gender in Education

Education of different

classes of women

• Girls were less like to attend school than boys. Often sewing was considered more important and girls would learn such domestic skills while boys concentrated on more serious subjects. Boys were taught to be punctual and industrious, while girls were taught to be chaste and obedient.
• Dame Schools for the working class were often run by half-literate, misinformed women and were criticized as being more of a babysitting service than an education.
• 1850's....female literacy rates increased dramatically. Several reasons for this.
• Sunday schools which were popularized at the time operated a hidden curriculum which reinforced subordination and religious texts consolidated a message of female inferiority.
• Differences between the classes...middle-and Upper class girls were often educated at home by relatives or governesses to varying results.

Body

Upper Class

Working Class

Middle Class

Bod

Institution

Schools

Boarding

Schools

Religious

Schools

Private

Schools

Home

Education

Body

Governesses/

Tutors

Dame Schools