This book examines the opening of university education to women in Ireland, locating the discussion within the wider social, political and cultural context of nineteenth century Irish society and within international developments in the reform of higher education for women. It looks at the state of education for females at the beginning of the nineteenth-century, the emergence of a reform movement, arguments for and against higher education for women, and the impact of higher educational provision on the role of women in Irish society. It offers for the first time a comprehensive analysis of the role and significance of women's colleges, which emerged from the 1850s in response to women's collective desire to access higher education and their exclusion from universities. The origins of these colleges, the kind of education they offered women, and the difference such an education made to women's career prospects are all considered. The book documents the differences between the Protestant and Catholic women's colleges and the rivalry which developed between them, spurred on by the public nature of the competitive examination process. Finally, it analyses the ideological arguments behind providing women with an education in an exclusively female domain and granting them full and equal access to the universities under the co-educational model.

The history of formal education for Irish women was characterised by a dichotomy: should a girl be educated for the private sphere and a dutiful subservience, or should she be educated for independent thought and paid employment? Her role models were either women who - like Minerva the goddess of wisdom - valued intellectual pursuits, or women who - like the Madonna - were pious and dutiful and accepted that their primary role was motherhood. This book is the only complete study of the formal education of Irish women and girls. Based on extensive research in original sources, it presents a fascinating social history of the educational experience of the female gender in Ireland between 1700 and 1920. The book, which examines its theme in three major sections, covers every aspect of formal - and indeed informal - schooling and tuition. Consequently, the reader is introduced to such areas as private education, orphanages, industrial schools, national schools, convents, intermediate schools, and colleges of higher education. Section One examines the history of education prior to the intervention of the state. Sources include records of private education, charity schools, and foundations of the early Catholic teaching orders. Section Two examines state intervention. The introduction of the national school system brought mass literacy to girls of the lower classes but with a gendered curriculum. At convent and boarding schools, middle-class girls received and education suited to their roles in life. However, in the mid-nineteenth century we find the genesis of the concept of academic education for girls. Finally, Section Three deals with the intellectual liberation of women, with particular reference to state support for Intermediate education from 1878, and the campaign for access to higher education for women. Formal education brought with it an opening of the professions, and facilitated access to a range of paid employment for women.

Tracing the evolution of women's role in university education from the 19th century to the present day, this book captures the complexity of women's position within the academy and poses the critical question: Have women made a difference?

Examining an impressive length of Irish cultural history, from 1700–1960, Reading the Irishwoman explores the dynamisms of cultural encounter and exchange in Irish women's lives. Analyzing the popular and consumer cultures of a variety of eras, it traces how the circulation of ideas, fantasies, and aspirations shaped women's lives both in actuality and in imagination. The authors uncover a huge array of different representations that Irish women have been able to identify with, including heroine, patriot, philanthropist, actress, singer, model, and missionary. By studying this diversity of viable roles in the Irish woman's cultural world, the authors point to evidence of women's agency and aspiration that reached far beyond the domestic sphere.

University Coeducation in the Victorian Era chronicles the inclusion of women in state-supported male universities during the nineteenth century. Based on primary sources produced by the administrators, faculty, and students, or other contemporary Victorian writers, this book provides insight from multiple perspectives of an important step in the progress of gender relations in higher education and society at large. By studying twelve institutions in the United States, and another twelve in the United Kingdom, the comparative scope of the work is substantial and brings local, regional, national, and international questions together, while not losing sight of individual university student experiences.

Examining two centuries of university education, this book charts the development of pedagogical approaches since the year 1800 and how they have transformed higher education. While institutions for promoting advanced learning in various forms have existed in Asia, Africa, and the Arab world for centuries, the beginning of the nineteenth century saw the emergence of the modern model of a university with which we are familiar today. This book argues that, in the time since, seven broad teaching approaches were developed across the world which continue to be used today: the disputation, the lecture, the tutorial, the research seminar, workplace teaching, teaching through material making, and role-play. O’Donoghue demonstrates how each has been reconfigured and developed over time in response to the changing nature of higher education, as well as society more generally. This expansive book will be of great interest to historians of education, scholars of education more generally, and teacher practitioners interested in the pedagogical models that shape modern academia.

An examination of Irish women's educational experiences, revealing the biased attitudes rooted in Irish education at all levels.

Bessie Scott, nearing the end of her first year at university in the spring of 1890, recorded in her diary: “Wore my gown for first time! It didn’t seem at all strange to do so.” Often deemed a cumbersome tradition by men, the cap and gown were dearly prized by women as an outward sign of their hard-won admission to the rank of undergraduates. For the first generations of university women, higher education was an exhilarating and transformative experience, but these opportunities would narrow in the decades that followed. In University Women Sara MacDonald explores the processes of integration and separation that marked women’s contested entrance into higher education. Examining the period between 1870 and 1930, this book is the first to provide a comparative study of women at universities across Canada. MacDonald concludes that women’s higher education cannot be seen as a progressive narrative, a triumphant story of trailblazers and firsts, of doors being thrown open and staying open. The early promise of equal education was not fulfilled in the longer term, as a backlash against the growing presence of women on campuses resulted in separate academic programs, closer moral regulation, and barriers that restricted their admission into the burgeoning fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The modernization of higher education ultimately marginalized women students, researchers, and faculty within the diversified universities of the twentieth century. University Women uncovers the systemic inequalities based on gender, race, and class that have shaped Canadian higher education. It is indispensable reading for those concerned with the underrepresentation of girls and women in STEM and current initiatives to address issues of access and equity within our academic institutions.

This book provides an overview of Irish gender history from the end of the Great Famine in 1852 until the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922. It builds on the work that scholars of women’s history pioneered and brings together internationally regarded experts to offer a synthesis of the current historiography and existing debates within the field. The authors place emphasis on highlighting new and exciting sources, methodologies, and suggested areas for future research. They address a variety of critical themes such as the family, reproduction and sexuality, the medical and prison systems, masculinities and femininities, institutions, charity, the missions, migration, ‘elite women’, and the involvement of women in the Irish nationalist/revolutionary period. Envisioned to be both thematic and chronological, the book provides insight into the comparative, transnational, and connected histories of Ireland, India, and the British empire. An important contribution to the study of Irish gender history, the volume offers opportunities for students and researchers to learn from the methods and historiography of Irish studies. It will be useful for scholars and teachers of history, gender studies, colonialism, post-colonialism, European history, Irish history, Irish studies, and political history. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.