Gender, Work and Education in Britain in the 1950s

Spencer, Stephanie

doi:10.1057/9780230286184

Cited by 37 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…In recent years, what can be inferred about this experience of transition has been supplemented by life history research in which respondents from middle-to retirement age have reflected on their experiences of entering the workplace in the three decades after the war. In this newer research, greater analytical attention has been paid to gendered experience (Spencer, 2005;Goodwin & O'Connor, 2002, and a revisionist strain has emerged. This argues against the common assumption of the last 20 years that the 1950s and 1960s was a golden age of opportunity for young workers before the economic traumas of the 1970s set in.…”

Section: Professional and Student Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Consequently, the colleges would need to provide for both day-release and evening social activities to counteract 'this problem of the "unoccupied hours"' of 15-to 18-year-olds (Board of Education, 1941, p. 21). This was a phase of life seen generally by adult society in the 1940s and 1950s as: for girls, the period of waiting for marriage (Ministry of Education 1956a, p. 21;NJAC, 1958, p. 28;Spencer, 2005); for boys, waiting for national service (compulsory for males until 1963) (Liepmann, 1960, p. 120;Venables, 1974, pp. 81, 83).…”

Section: Professional and Student Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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In search of the further education of young people in post‐war England

Richardson

2007

Journal of Vocational Education & Training

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Section: Professional and Student Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Professional and Student Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

In search of the further education of young people in post‐war England

Richardson

2007

Journal of Vocational Education & Training

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“…Being female was a factor in terms of the limitations it placed on Grace. The white working class women in this study were all educated in the post Second World War period and subject to the set of discourses and ideologies about classed femininity at that time (Spencer, 2005); these factors influenced Grace's experiences.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For Grace, balancing work and family needs was at times a cause of tension and stress, suggesting that tensions between family and career demands can be a factor for professional women, partly due to persisting dominant ideologies about the role of women as needed within the home (Spencer, 2005).…”

Section: Success At What Cost?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The price of success? The experiences of three senior working class female academics in the UK

Hoskins

2010

Women's Studies International Forum

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This paper explores how gender and class shape the constructions, perceptions and experiences of career success for three senior female academics, all of whom come from a white, working class background, paying attention to whether they reported any 'price' for their academic success. The paper is divided into four sections; first, there is a brief overview of what is known about working class women's experiences of higher education. Second, the paper outlines the methodological approach informing this research. Third, the paper explores the complexity of success. Fourth, some of the costs that my respondents have paid for their career success are discussed.© 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Working class women and higher educationSince the Second World War the number of female students participating in HE and moving on to work in HE in the UK has gradually increased (Coats, 1994). This increase centres around three factors; first, policy changes, such as the 1944 Education Act, which allowed some working class girls access to an academic school curriculum via the eleven plus examination (Matheson & Grosvenor, 1999). Second, the expansion of HE during the 1960s created additional capacity (Brooks, 1997). Third, the demands of the post war economy, where "the growth of white-collar and professional occupations required the recruitment of female labour" contributed to the increase of female participation in HE (Brooks, 1997: 16). These three factors were circumscribed to some extent by dominant gendered discourses which prescribed some academic disciplines (e.g. education and nursing) and forms of employment (e.g. secretary, teacher and nurse) as more compatible with femininity and other disciplines (e.g. law and natural sciences) and professions (e.g. lawyer, pharmacist and physician) as less so. In explaining the increasing participation of females in higher education in the post Second World War period, Deem (1995: 31) points out that; changes in the education of women since 1944 have usually been accompanied by changes in general social policy, and those changes have been closely linked to the needs of the economy and to prevailing ideologies about women's role in society.To accommodate these changes the state at that time emphasised a 'dual role' for women, encompassing paid work and family commitments (Deem, 1995) and consequently "encouraged women into education and training" (Brooks, 1997:16). State welfare provisions were increasingly made available (for example childcare) thus enabling women to participate more fully in the labour market, albeit in segregated sectors. As a result, the 1960s saw an upsurge in women students' entry to universities (Brooks, 1997: 16).Yet in the UK by 1989, women still only made up 25% of the cohort attending university (Coats, 1994). Delamont (2006: 179) asserts that "women are newcomers in higher education". In the mid 1990s Acker (1994: 125) noted that, Women are a minority […] among full time teachers and researchers in UK universities and better represented...

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“…Rather, they spoke about being aware of its existence and their acceptance of it as the norm. The constructed gender roles which shaped women's lives at this time were not only insidious, but often so subtle, that even the women experiencing them were not fully aware of their import (Spencer 2005). On this Helen recalled: 'I don't remember when we were told about it.…”

Section: Lack Of Transparency and Information In Relation To Women's mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘I am amazed at how easily we accepted it’: the marriage ban, teaching and ideologies of womanhood in post-Independence Ireland

Harford

Redmond

2019

Gender and Education

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This article examines the perspectives of 14 primary school teachers subjected to a marriage ban in Ireland between 1932 and 1958. This oral history study provides a unique platform to examine the construction and articulation of these women's historical memories. Interrogating their perspectives on the marriage ban provides an important window into the social and cultural world in which they lived, the norms and dominant values they encountered, and the ways in which they negotiated their own individual consciousness within a specific cultural framework. Specifically, the analysis of these women's testimony generates significant insights into the gendering of teaching as a suitable profession for women in early twentieth-century Ireland; how gender shaped social and cultural roles; Church control over women's training and employment; and the use of policy to deepen women's social and economic subordination.

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Gender, Work and Education in Britain in the 1950s

Cited by 37 publications

References 0 publications

In search of the further education of young people in post‐war England

In search of the further education of young people in post‐war England

The price of success? The experiences of three senior working class female academics in the UK

‘I am amazed at how easily we accepted it’: the marriage ban, teaching and ideologies of womanhood in post-Independence Ireland

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