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Examinations in England and Wales were a nineteenth -century invention closely connected to the ongoing development of a more modern and meritocratic society. The first examinations in secondary schools began during the 1850s. The middle of the century also saw active movements to improve the position of women in society and to secure better education for the poor of both sexes. Against this background of change, the thesis draws together a variety of sources in order to analyse the educational, social and economic significance of the development of examinations for girls from different social classes between 1860 and 1902. There are two major recurring themes within the thesis. First, the relevance of orthodox perceptions of appropriate future roles in society according to social rank and gender that led to different education provision both between middle-class and working-class children, and between boys and girls. Second, that in spite of such disadvantages some girls achieved success in examinations benefiting them, within a limited framework, educationally, socially and economically. Reflecting these major themes, which can be defined as objective structures on one hand and subjective action on the other, thesis data is analysed, in five central substantive chapters, within a gender history methodology allied to the `thinking tools' of the social theorist Pierre Bourdieu. Gender history methodology acknowledges the way in which gendered identities contribute to unequal power structures in society, while recognising women's strengths and individuality. Bourdieu questions how stratified systems of hierarchy and domination in society persist and are reproduced while arguing against an apparent determinism by emphasising that individuals have a role in defining their futures. The examinations specifically discussed within the thesis include those of the Universities of Cambridge, London and Oxford, the College of Preceptors, the Department of Science and Art, the Society of Arts and the City and Guilds of London Institute. The consequences of the examinations under the Revised Code of 1862 for working-class children in elementary schools are also analysed.

This thesis draws together a wide variety of sources in order to explore the way in which the adult female role was presented, and may have influenced, girls making their school leaving career decisions in England in the late 1950s. Career is understood throughout the thesis to include periods of domesticity as well as periods of full-time and part-time paid employment. The thesis uses Morwenna Griffiths' Feminisms and the Self: The Web of Identity (1995) as a theoretical framework of analysis. The metaphor of the web is employed to tease out the contradictions and ambivalence inherent in expectations of women's adult lives. Themes considered within the analysis of the different chapters are: the gendered nature of autonomy and independence; notions of women's citizenship in the emergent welfare state; the relationship between constructions of a universal Woman and individual women; and women's membership of different, yet overlapping, communities. Each chapter focuses on a different area of the web of identity using a number of sources. The first archival chapter focuses on the foundation of the welfare state using the Beveridge Report and evidence submitted to the Interdepartmental Committee on Social Insurance and the Allied Services by women's organisations. It considers alternative proposals by the Women's Freedom League and the reaction of the general public through the records of the Mass Observation Archive. This is followed by a consideration of employment advice offered in manuals, career novels and Women IS Employment. A chapter on educational sources initially considers 1950s sociological and educational research before turning to the records of the Association of Headmistresses and the Association of Assistant Mistresses to explore their expectations of school leavers. It also considers material submitted to the Crowther Committee for their Report in 1959 on educational provision from 15-18. In chapter five, constructions of the adult female role presented in Woman, Housewife and Girl are explored in relation to their construction of a female community and attitudes to paid employment. The thesis concludes with a discussion of twenty three interviews with women who left school between 1956 and 1960 between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. In drawing together this diversity of material the thesis demonstrates that the end of the 1950s was a period when attitudes towards the relationship of women to domesticity and paid work were marked in their complexity rather than in their consensus. It highlights the necessity of exploring both constructions of 'woman' as a unitary subject and the experiences of individuals in a historical evaluation of women's role in late 1950s England.