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Still going… sometimes in the dark”: Reflections of a woman of color educator

Yolanda Abel | Johns Hopkins University

High school change

Andrew Hargreaves | Boston College

Sharon Cook disucsses the importance of feminist associations, publishing houses, journals, and awards in supporting the development of scholarship on women and education.

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 29, 2024

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This video is a detailed examination of the history and methodology of women's contributions to educational history, particularly from the 1970s to the mid-1990s, against the backdrop of the feminist movements of those eras. It discusses the shift from second-wave feminism, which emphasized women's visibility and participation in public life—including education—to the rise of third-wave feminism, which introduced new perspectives on gender and identity.

The authors investigate why women's history gained importance during this period, linking it to increased female participation in the workforce and higher education, and noting that the women's peace movement also played a role in raising awareness of women's unique perspectives and contributions. The 1970 Royal Commission on the Status of Women is highlighted as a pivotal moment in Canada that profiled women's access to education and other institutions.

This video emphasizes the importance of feminist methodologies, such as oral history, in studying women's roles and experiences within education, arguing that traditional male-dominated histories often overlook women's contributions. It criticizes the current state of women's educational history, suggesting that it has become subsumed within broader gender history discussions and is at risk of being neglected.

The speaker expresses concern about the decline of interest in women's history among younger scholars and the potential impoverishment of the field due to a lack of research focus on women's contributions. Lastly, it advocates for renewed efforts to incorporate women's history into educational curricula to restore awareness of women's distinct roles and achievements in education.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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The context for the study, was,

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an, an examination by the three authors of,

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a period, a critical period in the writing

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of educational history that took women as subjects

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and also, an examination of

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who actually did that writing.

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Uh, who were those authors

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and, how did they enter the process?

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We began looking at the start of

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that process in the 1970s, which,

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to no one's surprise follows along the history

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of Second Wave feminism.

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This is very much a product of seven

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of second wave, feminism.

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And we carried it through to the mid 1990s, by which point,

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I think it's generally acknowledged that,

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third wave feminism had, emerged.

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And that was, a, a wave, a set

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of interests that were different from what second wave.

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And in fact, by that point, there was a considerable amount

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of educational history, that was devoted to,

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women's contribution.

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Um, and, so it's, it's a, a set piece that, runs

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through, about, 22,

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somewhere, 25 years.

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One of the questions that of course would emerge in a study

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of this sort, was, where it came from,

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why, women's history was seen

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to be important in that period.

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And as I've, I've already said, it was closely connected

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to the roots of second wave feminism that, in turn,

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of course, had much to do with the fact that by the 1970s,

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women had a much more visible role in the public life

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of Canada and of the UK

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and of the United States than had been the case up to

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that point, partly

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because they were, there were far

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more women in the workforce.

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There were far more women in universities.

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Um, and soon, of course, by the 1990s,

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women overtook men,

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as undergraduates in the universities.

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So there were more women to read this kind of, material.

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Um, and, to be interested in, just where,

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what women's involvement had been in, in all levels

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of the educational process.

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There was a very strong peace movement in the 1970s in both

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the UK and in Canada.

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And that had a, a, a, a powerful,

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influence through women.

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Uh, there were women sectors of

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that, of that peace movement.

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And that further, gave visibility to women.

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And I think another, product of that

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was the realization that women, in some instances

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in public life had a very different take on

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things than men did.

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And the peace movement was one of those.

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It has always been a movement, revolutionary movement,

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I would say, which, has identified women

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as being at the, at the core of it.

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Uh, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s in the us,

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of course gave rise to, questions,

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about gender and identity.

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And then of course, there were a series of, German,

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writings, including Betty Friedan's,

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the Feminine Mystique, Kate Millet's work and Simon de Bois.

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So it was a, an international movement that had,

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an expression in Canada.

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In Canada. Um, the main institutional expression

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occurred in 1970 when the Royal Commission on the status

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of women, brought down its report.

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And in that report, whi,

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which was widely acknowledged

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as an outstanding royal commissioned, result,

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in that, report, women's role,

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with regards to uneven access

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to institutions was profiled,

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and education had a particular emphasis there.

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It was clear that, from the, drafters

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of the Royal Commission,

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that if women didn't have equal access to education,

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they couldn't expect to have equal access

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to other institutions either.

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And, so the Royal Commission, was a, a

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powerful impetus to women beginning

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to ask other questions and men as well.

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And, today we would identify those, those men

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and women as feminists in asking what,

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different results would we have in recognizing

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women's involvement in anything education included,

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if we put women at the center of the process.

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And therefore, from

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that came a feminist perspective, which, I,

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I think it's fair to say colors,

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and helps to shape, all of the research,

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during this period where women are, regarded as,

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the subject, the primary subject,

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and with women as a subject went a methodology.

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And that methodology in Canada and the UK

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and in the United States was rooted in a movement,

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from the 1960s, which we now call social history.

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And, it's, you know, just, just in the parlance

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of the age, it is, history from the bottom up.

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Um, and so any group

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that has not been well represented in public life,

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and women are one of those, one of several, we now know

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benefits from having, from using a methodology that,

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looks at, women in their own context.

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It doesn't ask for, the same kinds of resources

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that we would be able to tap for male line history.

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Um, and some of those, strategies that,

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were developed through feminist, research

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include oral history, which, has, has, was very,

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strong as a strategy in the 1970s

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and has come back into its own in the 21st century.

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It's having a real renaissance oral history, just

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to take one example,

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but to give a little bit of depth to it,

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oral history assumes that individuals

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who were involved in a particular public event,

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also private events within the family, have a story,

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and that they should be in a position

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to tell their story as they choose.

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Um, that those stories should be collected just

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as any other historical source, should be,

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and should be used as the raw data

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for understanding the lives

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of whatever the individual might be, in this case,

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women within a particular period, in a particular context,

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both class based

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and, in terms of other types of identities.

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And, so oral histories have, are simply one,

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tool that, has been used by social historians

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and it very, particularly by feminist historians

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to dig into, the texture

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of women's lives wherever they found themselves.

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And with the result

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that we have a much broader understanding of

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how women lived in any given, period, let's say,

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you know, the, the 1970s, just as a case in point,

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a much, deeper understanding of

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that than we would have if we were just

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to use official documents, which, has always been

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or has been since the 19th century, the mainstay

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of mail line history,

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because women are absent from those

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documents for the most part.

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And, it, it also provides a different type of history.

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It's history from the individual.

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It means that we can't trust any single account,

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but if we have enough of these oral histories,

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we can see patterns just, as an historian,

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would be able to observe,

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using any other type of source material.

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It, has advanced by leaps and bounds.

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I, I'm happy to say that there is much more of it

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today than, there was,

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in the period when this was first, developed.

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Um, it, the heyday for,

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women's representation in, education

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or in any other field,

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I would say was the late 1980s into the

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1990s, the early 1990s.

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There was a, an astonishing amount of research that emerged

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between, let's say 1990 and 1995.

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And it was the culmination, of course, of years of, of,

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scholarly research up to that point, beginning with,

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third wave feminism

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and the, reorientation of,

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women's history into gender history.

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I, I'm sorry to say that there,

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we've lost a fair amount of ground.

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I think it's fair to say that, women's history,

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and women's educational history,

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and women's history in, in all regards, of,

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our culture has been subsumed in a larger

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context of gender history.

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And this of course, includes, women's history,

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but it also includes, various sexual identities.

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Um, so gay history has, developed,

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as we would hope it, it would do,

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and other, other histories of that sort.

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Um, in the process though, as I say, I would, I,

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I think women's history has become just one category,

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and to a considerable degree it is,

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in danger of being forgotten yet again.

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Uh, I noticed that young scholars in this country, in the UK

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and in the United States, are far more drawn to

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that more general category of, gender identity

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and, gender history than they are

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to women's history, per se.

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And sometimes, their, their work is on we, on women,

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but very often it is not.

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And so the quantity of what's being produced

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and the exposure of women's history,

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with regards to, educational advances,

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or anything else, I think is far less to,

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students at the high school level, which was,

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I think the great achievement of,

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the 1980s and the 1990s.

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A lot of this material got into textbooks,

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found its way into educational materials.

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And so you had adolescents, adolescent girls, and,

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and in some cases adolescent boys

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who were interested in reading about this.

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And it became, I think, important to many of these kids,

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to recognize

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that women did have a distinct history within

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education and otherwise.

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And, it was helpful, I think, to the adolescent process

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of identity formation.

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Much of that has been lost.

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So one of the projects that I continue to work with,

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with younger scholars is to, take the, the results

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of research in women's history

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and women's educational history is very important in this.

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And, provide teachers with those resources

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and also lesson plans.

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So this can be, so that kids adolescents,

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can be exposed to this, as they were in the 1980s

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and the 1990s feminist, scholarship

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by definition takes women as the core of its,

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investigation.

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And, so if one is wanting to know something about,

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women's, contribution to education, then

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it's useful, I think, to use feminist, methodologies,

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in order to ask the questions that are going

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to result in a fully fleshed out,

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understanding of, what women,

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contributed to that process.

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And I'll just give a really quick example here

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that pops into my mind.

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You know, educational history as it was written,

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from the, 18th century.

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Uh, Edward Trin just comes to mind.

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There's, just looking at one of his books the other day,

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a famous, British, educator through

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to the 1970s that wanted to investigate,

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the role of anyone in education generally took the great

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man approach to this.

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That there was one man who made a great difference

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and who was, able to change the institution, to

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whatever, it, it would be.

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Um, and who then was lauded for that.

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Um, whereas the,

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feminist pedagogy and research methodologies that underpin,

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modern educational history,

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which are interested in looking at women's role in

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particular, can't adopt that great women,

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or great women, methodology

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because there are so few of them.

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And, I mean, those women,

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who were prominent in education at all levels,

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and in, in my country, women are clustered very heavily,

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in elementary education

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and in secondary education, increasingly

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so at the post-secondary level.

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But if, if we wanna see women's power,

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it's at the elementary and the secondary level.

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And those women didn't think of themselves

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as being the great women.

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Um, they simply thought of themselves as educators who

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approached, the, task with a particular set

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of notions, one of which was the fact, on the part

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of most of these women that,

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girls had a role in education,

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and that they had something in, something special

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to gain from a public education as opposed to,

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informal or private education.

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So the methodologies are very, are, are going

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to be very different, and you're going to end up with

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a history that, has,

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is different as well, and that we hope at its best

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looks not only at the contribution that,

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women might have made to the school system in a period,

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but also how

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that institutional context changed the women themselves.

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If we have access to diaries, for example, you can see,

15:26.275 --> 15:30.845
what a woman, who, who became an educational leader,

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felt when she, at the start of that process.

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And, what she felt at the end of it.

15:36.105 --> 15:39.285
And, and very often at the end of it, she felt embittered

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because it had been a long period of challenges.

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That is not the sort of, history

15:46.115 --> 15:50.685
that you will get from a non feminist, set of,

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strategies, research strategies for Edward Trin.

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Um, you would, his,

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his would end up looking very different.

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So it seems an appropriate undertaking,

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if you're interested in, what one woman

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or a group of women

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or indeed, women period,

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who were involved, in education, in a given period,

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might have, experienced

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and might have fought about the process,

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and then what they contributed to it.

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I think I've already given you some of my conclusions,

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which is that, women's representation in,

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educational history is in trouble at the moment.

16:32.765 --> 16:34.885
Mm-Hmm. Um, I think it is waned.

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It is, does not have the cache that it once had.

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Um, it doesn't seem to be, picked up in the same way

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by young scholars, both women

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and men as, as it did, 20 years ago,

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25 years ago, I guess.

16:53.145 --> 16:56.905
Um, and that, that results, it's going

16:56.905 --> 17:01.105
to inevitably result in impoverishment of a field,

17:01.685 --> 17:05.505
if, if no new research is engaged.

17:05.505 --> 17:07.945
And it's not as if we've completed all the research

17:07.965 --> 17:09.065
on all the people Yeah.

17:09.285 --> 17:12.225
Um, that, have made a contribution.

17:12.725 --> 17:17.345
So, and, and this might be related, I, I, you know,

17:17.345 --> 17:21.065
and, and feminist research, takes the position

17:21.065 --> 17:23.785
of the researcher as being an important component.

17:24.165 --> 17:27.265
And because I am an old person here

17:27.725 --> 17:32.265
and, my glory days, as a researcher, were in

17:32.265 --> 17:35.225
that period when women's history was thriving

17:35.525 --> 17:38.105
and when there was a huge amount of it being done.

17:38.475 --> 17:41.745
Maybe this is more negative than you would hear from one

17:41.745 --> 17:42.865
of my younger colleagues.

17:43.165 --> 17:44.865
Um, I hope, I hope that's the case.

17:45.485 --> 17:50.365
Um, nevertheless, I, I think there is, is, room

17:50.985 --> 17:53.805
for concern, around that.

17:54.545 --> 17:58.965
And as we go forward, it seems to me that if,

17:59.375 --> 18:03.205
areas that have, been shown to

18:03.785 --> 18:07.685
enrich the field generally, which it seems to me the study

18:07.765 --> 18:12.445
of women in education has shown very, very clearly,

18:12.905 --> 18:17.445
if that is absent for whatever good reason, it means

18:17.835 --> 18:22.285
that, the field itself is, is going to be narrowed,

18:22.705 --> 18:27.165
and, or at least redirected in a way that,

18:27.945 --> 18:30.965
at least where women are dominant in that field.

18:31.025 --> 18:32.605
And as I say that in my country,

18:32.635 --> 18:34.125
that is true at the elementary

18:34.125 --> 18:37.365
and the secondary level, that,

18:37.425 --> 18:39.525
we won't have a full appreciation of that.

18:39.945 --> 18:41.805
So I regret that. I regret it very much,

18:42.305 --> 18:45.165
and it is of course, the, the way of scholarship

18:45.195 --> 18:49.605
that there are, new groups which,

18:49.855 --> 18:51.765
enter the field,

18:52.305 --> 18:55.765
and that shape that field to their particular interests.

18:55.865 --> 18:57.485
And, and that is always a good thing

18:57.485 --> 18:59.845
because you want historians,

18:59.945 --> 19:03.285
who are working in the field to have,

19:03.485 --> 19:04.845
a stake in what it is.

19:04.875 --> 19:06.845
They're, they're researching and writing.

19:06.955 --> 19:11.645
This is a personal process, just as we did have,

19:11.815 --> 19:16.605
early women historians, as, as the article also,

19:16.625 --> 19:20.925
sets out, take this on with kind of missionary zeal,

19:21.065 --> 19:23.125
you know, that this, this story was a story

19:23.125 --> 19:24.205
that had not been told

19:24.265 --> 19:26.685
and that needed to be told they would do it.

19:26.945 --> 19:29.085
And so that's onto new groups right now.

19:29.305 --> 19:31.685
So it, I think what the,

19:31.705 --> 19:33.965
the one very good thing about this is that it shows

19:34.665 --> 19:38.965
an institution like education as being multifaceted

19:39.665 --> 19:43.925
and as representing the interests of,

19:44.665 --> 19:46.725
the entire population one way or another.

19:47.345 --> 19:51.845
And so, if that, if one sector is dominant,

19:51.905 --> 19:54.765
at a given time, as I think gender historians are right at

19:54.765 --> 19:56.845
the moment, that doesn't mean that,

19:56.995 --> 19:58.645
there's no good work being done.

19:58.775 --> 20:00.085
There is good work being done.

20:00.115 --> 20:03.245
It's just very different than what it was,

20:03.435 --> 20:05.525
when women were first written into the record.

"Exploring Women's Contributions in Educational History Through the Lens of Feminism"

00:00:00 - The context for the study, was, an, an examination by the three authors of, a period, a critical period in the writing of educational history that took women as subjects and also, an examination of who actually did that writing. who were those authors and, how did they enter the process? We began looking at the start of that process in the 1970s, which, to no one's surprise follows along the history of Second Wave feminism. This is very much a product of seven
00:00:44 - And we carried it through to the mid 1990s, by which point, I think it's generally acknowledged that, third wave feminism had, emerged. And that was, a, a wave, a set of interests that were different from what second wave. And in fact, by that point, there was a considerable amount of educational history, that was devoted to, women's contribution. and, so it's, it's a, a set piece that, runs through, about, 22,
00:01:25 - One of the questions that of course would emerge in a study of this sort, was, where it came from, why, women's history was seen to be important in that period. And as I've, I've already said, it was closely connected to the roots of second wave feminism that, in turn, of course, had much to do with the fact that by the 1970s, women had a much more visible role in the public life of Canada and of the UK and of the United States than had been the case up to that point, partly because they were, there were far more women in the workforce.
00:02:06 - and soon, of course, by the 1990s, women overtook men, as undergraduates in the universities. So there were more women to read this kind of, material. and, to be interested in, just where, what women's involvement had been in, in all levels of the educational process. There was a very strong peace movement in the 1970s in both the UK and in Canada. And that had a, a, a, a powerful, influence through women. there were women sectors of that, of that peace movement. And that further, gave visibility to women.
00:02:51 - was the realization that women, in some instances in public life had a very different take on things than men did. And the peace movement was one of those. It has always been a movement, revolutionary movement, I would say, which, has identified women as being at the, at the core of it. the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s in the us, of course gave rise to, questions, about gender and identity. And then of course, there were a series of, German, writings, including Betty Friedan's,
00:03:33 - So it was a, an international movement that had, an expression in Canada. In Canada. the main institutional expression occurred in 1970 when the Royal Commission on the status of women, brought down its report. And in that report, whi, which was widely acknowledged as an outstanding royal commissioned, result, in that, report, women's role, with regards to uneven access to institutions was profiled,

"Feminist Perspectives in Educational History: The Role of the Royal Commission and Oral Histories"

00:04:15 - It was clear that, from the, drafters of the Royal Commission, that if women didn't have equal access to education, they couldn't expect to have equal access to other institutions either. And, so the Royal Commission, was a, a powerful impetus to women beginning to ask other questions and men as well. And, today we would identify those, those men and women as feminists in asking what, different results would we have in recognizing women's involvement in anything education included,
00:04:56 - And therefore, from that came a feminist perspective, which, I, I think it's fair to say colors, and helps to shape, all of the research, during this period where women are, regarded as, the subject, the primary subject, and with women as a subject went a methodology. And that methodology in Canada and the UK and in the United States was rooted in a movement, from the 1960s, which we now call social history. And, it's, you know, just, just in the parlance
00:05:40 - and so any group that has not been well represented in public life, and women are one of those, one of several, we now know benefits from having, from using a methodology that, looks at, women in their own context. It doesn't ask for, the same kinds of resources that we would be able to tap for male line history. and some of those, strategies that, were developed through feminist, research include oral history, which, has, has, was very,
00:06:23 - and has come back into its own in the 21st century. It's having a real renaissance oral history, just to take one example, but to give a little bit of depth to it, oral history assumes that individuals who were involved in a particular public event, also private events within the family, have a story, and that they should be in a position to tell their story as they choose. that those stories should be collected just as any other historical source, should be, and should be used as the raw data
00:07:05 - of whatever the individual might be, in this case, women within a particular period, in a particular context, both class based and, in terms of other types of identities. And, so oral histories have, are simply one, tool that, has been used by social historians and it very, particularly by feminist historians to dig into, the texture of women's lives wherever they found themselves. And with the result that we have a much broader understanding of
00:07:48 - you know, the, the 1970s, just as a case in point, a much, deeper understanding of that than we would have if we were just to use official documents, which, has always been or has been since the 19th century, the mainstay of mail line history, because women are absent from those documents for the most part. And, it, it also provides a different type of history. It's history from the individual. It means that we can't trust any single account, but if we have enough of these oral histories, we can see patterns just, as an historian, would be able to observe,

The Evolution and Challenges of Women's Educational History

00:08:28 - It, has advanced by leaps and bounds. I, I'm happy to say that there is much more of it today than, there was, in the period when this was first, developed. it, the heyday for, women's representation in, education or in any other field, I would say was the late 1980s into the 1990s, the early 1990s. There was a, an astonishing amount of research that emerged between, let's say 1990 and 1995. And it was the culmination, of course, of years of, of,
00:09:12 - third wave feminism and the, reorientation of, women's history into gender history. I, I'm sorry to say that there, we've lost a fair amount of ground. I think it's fair to say that, women's history, and women's educational history, and women's history in, in all regards, of, our culture has been subsumed in a larger context of gender history. And this of course, includes, women's history,
00:09:54 - so gay history has, developed, as we would hope it, it would do, and other, other histories of that sort. in the process though, as I say, I would, I, I think women's history has become just one category, and to a considerable degree it is, in danger of being forgotten yet again. I noticed that young scholars in this country, in the UK and in the United States, are far more drawn to that more general category of, gender identity
00:10:35 - to women's history, per se. And sometimes, their, their work is on we, on women, but very often it is not. And so the quantity of what's being produced and the exposure of women's history, with regards to, educational advances, or anything else, I think is far less to, students at the high school level, which was, I think the great achievement of, the 1980s and the 1990s. A lot of this material got into textbooks,
00:11:16 - And so you had adolescents, adolescent girls, and, and in some cases adolescent boys who were interested in reading about this. And it became, I think, important to many of these kids, to recognize that women did have a distinct history within education and otherwise. And, it was helpful, I think, to the adolescent process of identity formation. Much of that has been lost. So one of the projects that I continue to work with, with younger scholars is to, take the, the results of research in women's history and women's educational history is very important in this.
00:12:00 - and also lesson plans. So this can be, so that kids adolescents, can be exposed to this, as they were in the 1980s and the 1990s feminist, scholarship by definition takes women as the core of its, investigation. And, so if one is wanting to know something about, women's, contribution to education, then it's useful, I think, to use feminist, methodologies,

"Reevaluating Women's Contributions in Educational History: Challenges and Perspectives"

00:12:40 - to result in a fully fleshed out, understanding of, what women, contributed to that process. And I'll just give a really quick example here that pops into my mind. You know, educational history as it was written, from the, 18th century. Edward Trin just comes to mind. There's, just looking at one of his books the other day, a famous, British, educator through to the 1970s that wanted to investigate, the role of anyone in education generally took the great
00:13:22 - That there was one man who made a great difference and who was, able to change the institution, to whatever, it, it would be. and who then was lauded for that. whereas the, feminist pedagogy and research methodologies that underpin, modern educational history, which are interested in looking at women's role in particular, can't adopt that great women, or great women, methodology because there are so few of them. And, I mean, those women,
00:14:05 - and in, in my country, women are clustered very heavily, in elementary education and in secondary education, increasingly so at the post-secondary level. But if, if we wanna see women's power, it's at the elementary and the secondary level. And those women didn't think of themselves as being the great women. they simply thought of themselves as educators who approached, the, task with a particular set of notions, one of which was the fact, on the part of most of these women that, girls had a role in education, and that they had something in, something special
00:14:49 - informal or private education. So the methodologies are very, are, are going to be very different, and you're going to end up with a history that, has, is different as well, and that we hope at its best looks not only at the contribution that, women might have made to the school system in a period, but also how that institutional context changed the women themselves. If we have access to diaries, for example, you can see,
00:15:31 - felt when she, at the start of that process. And, what she felt at the end of it. And, and very often at the end of it, she felt embittered because it had been a long period of challenges. That is not the sort of, history that you will get from a non feminist, set of, strategies, research strategies for Edward Trin. you would, his, his would end up looking very different. So it seems an appropriate undertaking, if you're interested in, what one woman or a group of women
00:16:10 - who were involved, in education, in a given period, might have, experienced and might have fought about the process, and then what they contributed to it. I think I've already given you some of my conclusions, which is that, women's representation in, educational history is in trouble at the moment. Mm-Hmm. I think it is waned. It is, does not have the cache that it once had. it doesn't seem to be, picked up in the same way by young scholars, both women

"Concerns Over the Future of Women's History Research in Education"

00:16:51 - 25 years ago, I guess. and that, that results, it's going to inevitably result in impoverishment of a field, if, if no new research is engaged. And it's not as if we've completed all the research on all the people Yeah. that, have made a contribution. So, and, and this might be related, I, I, you know, and, and feminist research, takes the position of the researcher as being an important component. And because I am an old person here
00:17:32 - that period when women's history was thriving and when there was a huge amount of it being done. Maybe this is more negative than you would hear from one of my younger colleagues. I hope, I hope that's the case. nevertheless, I, I think there is, is, room for concern, around that. And as we go forward, it seems to me that if, areas that have, been shown to enrich the field generally, which it seems to me the study
00:18:12 - if that is absent for whatever good reason, it means that, the field itself is, is going to be narrowed, and, or at least redirected in a way that, at least where women are dominant in that field. And as I say that in my country, that is true at the elementary and the secondary level, that, we won't have a full appreciation of that. So I regret that. I regret it very much, and it is of course, the, the way of scholarship that there are, new groups which,
00:18:52 - and that shape that field to their particular interests. And, and that is always a good thing because you want historians, who are working in the field to have, a stake in what it is. They're, they're researching and writing. This is a personal process, just as we did have, early women historians, as, as the article also, sets out, take this on with kind of missionary zeal, you know, that this, this story was a story that had not been told and that needed to be told they would do it. And so that's onto new groups right now. So it, I think what the,
00:20:03 - an institution like education as being multifaceted and as representing the interests of, the entire population one way or another. And so, if that, if one sector is dominant, at a given time, as I think gender historians are right at the moment, that doesn't mean that, there's no good work being done. There is good work being done. It's just very different than what it was, when women were first written into the record.

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