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How does gender play a part in education
How does gender affect education
How does gender play a part in education
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The American system of education has undergone dramatic transformations at various times since its origins in the 1600s, reflecting changes in the social life and culture of the nation. The first forms of education began years after the Protestant Reformation when Europeans began settling in North America. The largest influence on early education was religious sects-including, Puritans, Huguenots, Anabaptists, and Quakers. Schools were frequently built by the religious leaders in order to ensure the replication of individual sects. As time develops we can see how education spread throughout the states and developed significantly.
In the early colonies the Massachusetts Bay colony began spreading schools all throughout the states. In 1647
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the Massachusetts Bay colony required by law secondary schools in the cities, to influence the spread of literacy and religion throughout the colonies. Even so, education in Massachusetts was definitely not ideal. Books were limited to what was donated by a town minister or wealthy citizen. Teachers were sometimes just as uneducated as the student. But, as the colony drew in more educated settlers from england and scholars from Harvard, the quality of education increasingly improved. The enrollments of education decreased significantly from the 1660s to 1670s as the puritans grew prosperous and lost their zeal for education. The lack of interest of education was reversed during the ‘Great Awakening” when preachers such as John Edwards sparked a fear and an attraction towards God turning colonists back to the church.
The increasing demand for ministers aided in the revival of schools because scholars were needed to train preachers and ministers. Colonial education was certainly a large innovation in history, for the concept of free schools was unknown in Europe at that time. The subjects were set in place to help students succeed in life through arithmetic for business; languages to communicate, debate, and preach; and reading to provide access to the Bible and to understand contracts, government documents, and laws. A few schools under more learned schoolmasters even offered language classes in …show more content…
Hebrew. A desire to reform and expand education accompanied and informed many of the political, social, and economic impulses toward reform. Three particularly important core components of education reform developed in the antebellum period: education for the common man and woman, greater access to higher education for women, and schooling for free blacks. This spark for education led to a movement. The “common school movement” was a goal to achieve a particular type of formal education, one that would become available to all citizens, developed and managed through increased governmental activity at the state level and supported by local property taxes. Common schooling was free and “universal.” The main purpose of the common school, was to provide a more centralized and efficient school system, one that would train and discipline the emerging working classes and prepare them for a successful life in an industrial society. Horace Mann (1796–1859), was a member of the Massachusetts state legislature, and later became a secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. Mann’s ideology was based upon a strong sense of Protestant Republicanism that was rooted in a secular, non-sectarian morality. He believed that education was a child’s natural born right and that moral education should be the center of the curriculum. In order to accomplish education reform, Mann campaigned for state-controlled boards of education, a more uniform curriculum, and greater state involvement in teacher training. Mann was firmly convinced that public education had the power to become a stabilizing force in American . The struggle for greater educational opportunities for women was clearly linked to the antebellum reform movement, as well as the campaign for women’s rights.
The demand for greater educational opportunities has always been an essential for women. While young women were admitted into the public schools, the majority of women in the United States were denied educational opportunities. In 1830, it was calculated that women’s literacy was but half of men’s. Just as Horace Mann defined the common school movement, Emma Willard (1787–1870), Catharine Beecher (1800–1878), and Mary Lyon (1797–1849) were three leading female figures in the progress of women’s education. However, unlike Mann and the common school movement, women reformers themselves had to struggle for education as second-class citizens.
Emma Willard started teaching when she was seventeen; in 1814 she founded the Troy Female Seminary, which was the first recognized institution for educating women. It was later renamed the Emma Willard School. An advocate of a meticulous curriculum for girls, she addressed the New York State legislature in 1819 and challenged Thomas Jefferson’s disparaging views about women’s mental capacities. Her entire life was devoted to women’s education, and many of the graduates of the Emma Willard School joined the ranks of the women’s rights movement to fight for education
equality. Catharine Beecher was born into a prominent family; her father, Lyman Beecher, was the well-known religious reformer; her sister was Harriet Beecher Stowe, an abolitionist and author of the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Dissatisfied with her limited education at private school, Beecher was determined to provide greater opportunities for young women. In 1823 she founded the Hartford Female Seminary, and offered her students a rigorous academic curriculum with an emphasis on women’s physical education. Like Mann, Beecher believed that women were natural teachers, because of their domestic lifestyles. Furthermore the purpose of women’s education was to prepare them to be better mothers and teachers. A few women combined their passion for abolition, racial equality, and education. One of the most courageous of these reformers was Prudence Crandall (1803–1890), who in 1831 founded the Canterbury Female Boarding School. The next year she admitted an African American student named Sarah Harris. Many disapproved of this and many white parents protested and took their daughters out of the school. Crandall, in response reopened her school as an academy for African American girls. The town fought back with racist laws and violence. In spite of support from other leading abolitionists, Crandall was forced to close the school in 1834. The struggle for women’s education was also affected by the founding of Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts, the first institution of higher education for women. It was established in 1837 by Mary Lyon, who served as the school president. Her vision for higher education included bringing in women from all social classes to study a demanding curriculum. Mt. Holyoke’s success was followed by the founding of other women’s colleges.
After centuries of exclusion from the rest of society’s tasks, women decided to voice their opinions about their rights. In the early 19th century, the United States decided to reform the educational institutions, seeking to raise their standards. However, male students were the sole beneficiaries of this reform; women were not admitted into universities. Emma Hart Willard, one of the most prominent voices for women’s education, ran Middlebury Female Academy: an institution where geometry, philosophy, and other topics were taught. She proposed to establish her school to New York and have it publically funded, but New York refused; she built her school there anyway. Two years later she founded Troy Female Seminary. Emma Willard’s courage provided opportunities for other women’s rights activists. Although there was an influx of revolutionary women, many women were excluded. African American and other minorities were not included in the fight for women’s rights. Emma Willard had many reservations about the institution of slavery. Like the Antebellum period, there was a sense of improvement, but still a repetition of
...intolerance over the immorality of slavery. A movement to treat the insane humanely was taken up by reformer Dorothea Dix. She believed the insane deserved better treatment as they were not criminals, they were simply ill. Other reformers, such as Horace Mann sought to equalize the social classes by providing free and better education for the poor (a public education system). This cause was instrumental in sparking the flame of education which would spread though the Untied States like wildfire. Desiring equality with men, women took advantage of this spirit of reform and proceeded with the Seneca Fall Convention in New York, 1848. Drafting a document similar to the Declaration of Independence, women sought equality in all aspects of life. These and other reforms in the 1840s were a direct result of the Jacksonian ideal which “celebrated the era of the common man”.
As mentioned above, women’s role were unjust to the roles and freedoms of the men, so an advanced education for women was a strongly debated subject at the beginning of the nineteenth century (McElligott 1). The thought of a higher chance of education for women was looked down upon, in the early decades of the nineteenth century (The American Pageant 327). It was established that a women’s role took part inside the household. “Training in needlecraft seemed more important than training in algebra” (327). Tending to a family and household chores brought out the opinion that education was not necessary for women (McElligott 1). Men were more physically and mentally intellectual than women so it was their duty to be the educated ones and the ones with the more important roles. Women were not allowed to go any further than grammar school in the early part of the 1800’s (Westward Expansion 1). If they wanted to further their education beyond grammar, it had to be done on their own time because women were said to be weak minded, academically challenged and could n...
Education did not form part of the life of women before the Revolutionary War and therefore, considered irrelevant. Women’s education did not extend beyond that of what they learned from their mothers growing up. This was especially true for underprivileged women who had only acquired skills pertaining to domesticity unlike elite white women during that time that in addition to having acquired domestic skills they learned to read a result becoming literate. However, once the Revolutionary War ended women as well as men recognized the great need for women to obtain a greater education. Nonetheless, their views in regards to this subject differed greatly in that while some women including men believed the sole purpose of educating women was in order to better fulfil their roles and duties as wives and mothers others believed the purpose of education for women was for them “to move beyond the household field.” The essays of Benjamin Rush and Judith Sargent Murray provide two different points of view with respects to the necessity for women to be well educated in post-revolutionary America.
Mount Holyoke College is a liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Originally founded by Mary Lyon as Mount Holyoke Female Seminary on 8 November 1837, it is the "first of the Seven Sisters" and is the oldest continuing institution of higher education for women in the United States. In addition, according to the United States Department of Education, "Mount Holyoke’s significance is that it became a model for a multitude of other women’s colleges throughout the country." (contributors, 2008) 1834 was a turning point for Mary Lyon. She decided to leave Ipswich Female Seminary, where she was assistant principal, and focus all of her time and efforts on founding an institution of higher education for women. For the next three years, she crusaded tirelessly for funds and support. It was not the best time to ask people for donations, the U.S. was in a severe economic depression. But Mary Lyon persisted. She wrote circulars and ads announcing the plan for the school, raised money, persuaded prominent men to back her enterprise, developed a curriculum, visited schools and talked to educators as far away as Detroit, chose the school's location, supervised the design and construction of a building, brought equipment, hired teachers, and selected students. She endured ridicule from those who felt her ambitious undertaking would be "wasted" on women. Her constant travels often left her in a state of exhaustion. Yet, Mary Lyon never doubted her belief that women deserved to have the same opportunities for higher education as their brothers.
1779- Thomas Jefferson implements a two- track educational system that brings different regulations for the government to uphold with regards to “the laboring and the learned.” The regulations that this largely effected were ones that required to government to allow every citizen the right to gain an education. It was one of the first and largest pushes towards getting a free education
Introduced by Susan B. Anthony at the International Council of Women in 1888, Matilda Josyln Gage began her speech with a brief sketch of her early entry into the suffrage movement: I have frequently been asked what first turned by thoughts towards woman's rights. I think I was born with a hatred of oppression, and, too, in my father's house, I was trained in the anti-slavery ranks, for it was one of the stations on the underground railway, and a home of anti-slavery speakers. Well I remember the wonder with which, when a young girl, I looked upon Abby Kelly, when she spoke of the wrongs of black women and black men. Then I remember, before the Round House in my city of Syracuse was finished, a large and enthusiastic anti-slavery convention was held there, attended by thousands of people who all joined in singing William Lloyd Garrison's song, "I'm an Abolitionist and glory in the Name," and as they rang out that glorious defiance against wrong, it thrilled my very heart, and I feel it echoing to this day. I am indebted to my father for something better than a collegiate education. He taught me to think for myself, and not to accept the word of any man, or society, or human being, but to fully examine for myself. My father was a physician, training me himself, giving me lessons in physiology and anatomy, and while I was a young girl he spoke of my entering Geneva Medical College, whose president was his old professor, and studying for a physician, but that was not to be. I had been married quite a number of years when Elizabeth Blackwell was graduated from that institution, which opened its doors to admit her, closing them, upon her graduation, to women, until since its union with the Syr...
Different ideas were being expressed through The Second Great Awakening. The religious focus was now turning to God’s mercy and benevolence, which sparked other beliefs and ideas. People started believing that they could control their own fate. Worship services consisted of singing hymns and personal testimonies to make it more emotional. Many found religion as a soft comfort during the difficulties of this time period. Charles Finney was one of the most effective evangelists of the time. He entertained and edified, preached on conviction, repentance, and reformation (DOC B). The belief that parents could contribute to their child’s salvation led women to want to spiritually educate their children. Spiritually educating led to the belief that education was important. Schools were started to educate children while they were young. Many lower-class families had to go to high extremes to put their children in school. Children were needed to help work in the homes, but families saw that education was important, and they would allow their children to attend half a day or more of schooling (DOC E). Religion and education was becoming better known throughout society. America saw they needed to apply higher principles to gain benefits of the highest physical, intellectual, and moral education in order to be a gre...
At this time, religion played a major role on the educational system in the sense that all types of religious groups were represented in the American school system, but they were challenged with how they could be loyal to their religions beliefs. With the 'Pledge of Allegiance' present, some people felt as though the values of Americans and the "Creators'" beliefs should be taught in the classrooms. Of course, others felt that religion and school should be separate. As a result of disagreements such as these, many problems arose.
Education for women in the 1800s was far different from what we know today. During her life, a girl was taught more necessary skills around the home than the information out of school books. A woman’s formal education was limited because her job opportunities were limited—and vice versa. Society could not conceive of a woman entering a profession such as medicine or the law and therefore did not offer her the chance to do so. It was much more important to be considered 'accomplished' than thoroughly educated. Elizabeth Bennet indicated to her sisters that she would continue to learn through reading, describing education for herself as being unstructured but accessible. If a woman desired to further he education past what her classes would teach her, she would have to do so independently, and that is what most women did.
Gender, social status, and the region in which a child lived determined how much schooling a child would receive and where and how they would get it. Children of the upper class were either taught in private schools or by a tutor. They were taught reading, writing, prayers, and simple math ("Education") . They were taught using repetition from the Bible, a religion-based reading supplement called a primer, and/or a paddle-shaped (also religious) horn book ("Schooling"). The upper-class boys were taught more advanced academic subjects, and may have been sent to boarding school in England or another state. The girls were taught to assume the duties of a wife and mother and obtained basic knowledge so they could read the Bible and record expenses ("Education"). While the south had very few laws for education because of its population, the middle and northern colonies (and then states) had established guidelines for their citizens. Pennsylvania's Law of 1683 set a monetary penalty for any parent whose children could not read and write by age twelve, and who were not taught a useful trade. By 1642 the northern colonies had already mandated a public education or apprenticeship for children, one grammar school for towns with more that one-hundred families, and an elementary school for towns with more than fifty.
The teaching of history in the Americas begins in the 17th century. The establishment of schools in the colonies began in the 17th century thanks to the colonists. During the introduction of schools in the colonies, 90% of
The right for women to be educated has been long sought after. The history of women education started the beginning of feminism. Education, over the last two hundred years, has changed women lives in America according to Barbara M. Solomon. In the early years of American history women were discouraged from getting a higher education it would be considered unnatural for women to be educated, and women were only taught domestic skills such as sewing, cooking and child-rearing. American women began to seek opportunities for further education, as well as equal rights. The history of women’s education has evolved through events that have shaped the culture of America today. To better understand the women’s education movement, it is important to know the background of its history.
Before the 1840’s the education system was only available to wealthy people. Individuals such as Horace Mann from Massachusetts and Henry Barnard in Connecticut believed that schooling for everybody would help individuals become productive citizens in society. Through their efforts, free public education at the elementary level become assessable for all children in American by late 19th century. By 1918 all states passed laws that required children to attend elementary school. The Catholics were against this law, so they created their own private schools. In 1925 the Supreme Court passed a law that allowed children to attend private school rather than public school (Watson, 2008).
There are two types of schools in the United States, those being public school and private school. Private schools first appeared in the 1660’s in New Netherland. They started showing up in the united states by the eighteenth century. They were first organized by individual teachers who thought that they could increase their income by teaching older kids and