Women teachers in control? Findings on expansion of primary education in nineteenth-century France

The development of female education in France in the 19th century is complex and difficult to examine. Since the subject deals with the history of exclusion from education, it is not easily assessed. New books by Sharif Gemie and Anne T. Quartararo examined the steady integration of females. They described the gradual absorption as mere afterthought to state policies of primary education for lower classes. They also portrayed the movement as an an element of the development of a gendered social role for women which became a basic element of the Third Republic.