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An examination of recent gender scholarship demonstrates how a gendered lens has contributed to the debates on society, the state and education. Using local and international examples mostly from about 1880 to 1930, this paper will investigate how gendered perceptions coloured the provision of education, what we mean by “the state” and how much and what type of education it and other bodies have provided for females in different contexts. Following this, it will examine the growth of women in teaching, the challenges and limitations which beset them, the opportunities that were opened up to them and how far they and other women achieved authority and/or expertise in education in schools, colleges, educational administration and management, or as leaders and thinkers. This will illustrate the gendered thinking underlying much state education, but also show women as agents, building up networks and communities of women involved in education in multifarious ways, including transnational education. At the same time it can be seen that this has often belied imperialistic imperatives and ethnic condescension. Moving between local examples from Birmingham and Britain and international examples principally from English-speaking scholarship, the importance of gender history is argued because it reveals educational experiences and tiers of educational initiatives, practice and administration often neglected yet significant in education, while at the same time raising new questions. It does not just bring females into history, but understands history in a different and deeper way. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses the effects of imperialism on British (or chiefly English) social life and education in the nineteenth century rather than examining the effects on the colonised as is usually done. It is shown that the nineteenth century was infused with different visual and written images which helped develop attitudes and ideas which influenced social change in Britain. The “imperial gaze” demonstrated a fascination with the unknown and exotic; a scientific curiosity to discover, collect, classify and explain; an economic desire to find and exploit; and mixed motivations from religious, humanitarian and nationalistic impulses to convert, “civilise” and dominate. In different ways and at different levels this entailed a wish to “know” and an urge to pass on presumed “truths” that interlocked imperial influences into educational enterprise, although not necessarily within formal schooling. As the century progressed, events within the expanding empire, combining with scientific theories, helped to develop cultural arrogance, dominated by ideas of white, Western superiority. Yet there was no homogenous, uncontested discourse. As post-imperial debates suggest, chronological shifts, differing gender and class responses are significant. Effects could be paradoxical as those of imperial opportunities and rhetoric were on women's lives. Examples from other imperial nations, especially France and the Netherlands, indicate parallel imperial, sometimes imperialistic, concerns and interests and varying consequences, but in different contexts. The paper ends with some suggestions on how the difficulties of analysing the effects of empire on social change and education could be addressed within history of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This appendix accompanies Ruth Watts' presidential address for the History of Education Society (UK), published in History of Education , May, 2005, vol.34, no.3, pages 225–241 under the title of ‘Gendering the story: change in the history of education’. The article in vol.34, no.3, looks over the history of women's and gender studies in the history of education from 1976 to the end of 2004 and examines the changes and effects of these studies in order to ask what historians of education can learn from this and where they should go next. The focus of the article is not just the presence of women or papers on them in history of education but whether the greater presence has changed both understanding of gender issues themselves and whether it has affected the whole field and if so, how? The article begins with a brief historiographical review of the field; second, it draws out key issues which represent the present state of affairs; and third, it provides a comparison of what is happening in gender history in a related field, science. It ends with suggestions for future research. The appendix printed below lists the articles published in History of Education from 1976 that formed the basis of the survey on which ‘Gendering the story: change in the history of education’ was based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses various issues related to the history of women's and gender studies in the history of education. The significance of gender in history has now been argued strongly for over two decades. What the article authoress is interested in is not just the presence of women or papers on them in history of education, rather it is whether the greater women presence has changed both understanding of gender issues themselves and whether it has affected the whole field or not. In the second half of the twentieth century, the history of science, like other histories, was affected by philosophical and intellectual movements that led to the questioning of grand narratives and the assumption of progress. This was all the more pertinent in the scientific field where progress was perceived as underpinning Western supremacy. The challenge began particularly with the critiques of pure scientific objectivity by Thomas Kuhn and others in the 1960s but gender studies have also played a huge part, not least because a number of women scientists themselves came to question their restricted access to the higher realms of science and turned to history and philosophy to find the answers.

Discusses articles that reflect Walter Benjamin's position that 'what is past' and 'what is present' form 'a constellation,' and presented at the 23rd meeting of the International Standing Conference for the History of Education in Birmingham, England. Overall theme of the conference; Kay Morris Matthews' article on deviant children in colonial towns of the nineteenth century in New Zealand.