Beating time?: the resistance,reproduction and representation of older women in teacher education (UK)

Drawing on in-depth interviews with seven older women who teach teachers, this paper explores some of the dilemmas that shape and pattern their working worlds, specifically in relation to age and issues of ageism. While the paper will start from the words and experiences of these women, the intention is to foreground three theoretical concerns. First, the paper explores the ways in which older women repudiate discourses of ageism. The point here is to demonstrate that while (some/many) older women are ‘objectified’ through their age, others (middle-class professionals in particular perhaps) have some capacity to challenge this and reject a pathological account of themselves. Second, and contradictorily, the paper seeks to tease out the ‘uncomfortable’ ways in which discourses of ageism may well be reproduced and performed by older women as they seek to distance themselves from ‘others’ who they see as caught up in stereotyped age-positions. Third, the paper questions the very real research dilemmas involved in the problematics of representations; how can bits of data, short spoken accounts, be used to ‘represent’ the lives of these older women? Holding this paper together is the fact that all the data have been collected from women who work in teacher education (in the UK). Teacher education is a feminized and gendered division of labour, where men occupy most of the senior positions and thus are in a position to ‘sculpt’ the sector. Older women who teach teachers work in a complex cultural occupation setting where their sex, class and previous teaching experience positions them in a subordinate position. As they become older, what does all this mean for them?     

Humankind Takes Up Environmental Ethics

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, as major progress was made in women's participation in higher education, the proportion of women teachers in higher educational institutions gradually increased and their status has significantly improved. What, then, is the status of women teachers in China's higher education today? This is an issue which still deserves our exploration. Thus, let us first do our best to reflect on this status relatively accurately. In this article, the status of women teachers is a relative concept and is used in reference to and comparison with male teachers' status. At the same time, the status of women teachers is a collective concept, including primarily the proportion of women teachers to the total number of teachers in present-day regular universities and colleges, the distribution of their disciplines, their entry into faculties of universities and colleges, their promotion in title and rank, and their self-cognition and social identity.     

The Gender of Professionalism and Occupational Closure: The management of tenure-related disputes by the 'Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario' 1918-1949

This article examines how the gender of professionalism is central to an understanding of occupational closure. Using the social history of the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario (FWTAO) as an example, the author shows how the executive allegiance to the gender of professionalism incited a moral concern with rural women teachers employed in the elementary public school system in the early twentieth century, and how this concern interfered with the delivery of protective services to country teachers involved in contractual disputes. The model of professionalism was based on a composite portrait of the older masculinised European ideal of professional rationality, and distilled through a feminine ideal of conduct intelligible to white middle- and upper-class women in early twentieth-century Canada. The professional ideal was used as a measure of occupational success and applied as a criterion for granting or withholding protective services. As a result, rural women falling short of the ideal were denied protective services when embroiled in tenure-related disputes and, ultimately, they were excommunicated from the profession.     

The Relationship of Reading Skills to the Ability to Solve Arithmetic Problems

Abstract

The Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values was administered to 19 secondary and 19 college history teachers, matched according to sex, subject taught, age, time of graduation, and academic ability. Differences between the two groups were obtained on the aesthetic scale, on which the college teachers scored significantly higher. On the economic scale, the college teachers were lower-but only when the two groups were divided into "younger" and "older" was the difference significant, with the "younger" college teachers significantly lower than the "older" secondary teachers. The "younger" high school teachers tended to score more nearly like the college teachers, but "younger" teachers in both groups scored less like the norms than their "older" colleagues.     

Learning Resources

This article presents labor‐force tends that show certain geographic areas, such as Kentucky, Sweden, and Japan, experiencing very limited labor‐force growth and a heavier reliance on older workers because of declining younger‐age populations. The authors discuss these declines and other factors such as participation rates of women and older people in the labor force, retirement incentives of income‐support programs, and educational and training needs. Based on the data and trends presented, this article advocates for research and policy options to be studied in relation to this information if we are to respond effectively to an aging labor force.     

The problematic place of a woman physical education instructor: an historical case study

In this article the author's problematize the position of women in state school physical education, focusing in particular on the ‘instructors’ who were appointed to work with women teachers and senior girls, and prepare trainees at the Teachers College in South Australia. In exploring this little researched area, the article explores shifting representations of the woman ‘instructor’ from the 1920s to the late 1940s, highlighting the interplay of key discourses associated with age, gender, marital status, character, disciplinarity and physical activity. In addition, the authors explicate ways in which these discourses were interwoven in the career of May Cleggett, who for most of the period was the only woman physical education instructor in South Australian state schools.     

“She's sort of dragging me into the story!” Student teachers' experiences of reading aloud in Key Stage 2 classes

This article explores the place of the class novel within the current primary curriculum. It begins with an overview of past and current thinking about reading aloud to older primary‐age children. The discussion then moves on to describing research carried out with 43 primary postgraduate student teachers, which aimed to investigate the students' school experiences of observing reading aloud and working on whole narrative texts. Lastly, the article focuses on how the findings influenced changes made to a postgraduate primary course in order to support and develop students' understanding of the role that reading aloud plays in developing children's critical understanding of story.     

A longitudinal study of the supply and demand for physics and chemistry teachers in Kansas

The continuing crisis in the supply and demand for high school physics and chemistry teachers has been documented by a series of national surveys. There is a need, however, to augment these surveys with accurate longitudinal data which identifies the age-specific variables of science teacher survival rates, incoming number of new teachers, and the rate at which science teachers change age cohorts. These three variables were used in a five year longitudinal study of all the physics and chemistry teachers in Kansas to project the need for teachers in 1985 and in 1990. The study indicated that the teachers 40 years and older comprised 33.5% of the physics/ chemistry teacher population in 1979–1980 and the percentage will steadily increase to 60.8 by 1990. The high turnover rate of science teachers 29 years old and younger is also contributing to the shortage of qualified physics and chemistry teachers. The cohort component population projection method outlined in this study is recommended for use in other states to document the age specific characteristics of the science teacher population.     

Threatening the patriarchy: teaching as performance

This article brings into conversation theories of performance and performativity to argue that the analogy of a teacher as a performer is a very complex discourse that both empowers and disempowers women teachers. As the field of teachers is increasingly comprised of women and the education policy and administrative leadership fields is increasingly comprised of men, there is an equally disturbing increase in the amount of disciplining, standardisation, and evaluation of teachers’ practices within schools in recent decades. The author argues that the perceived feminisation of the teaching field produces a situation in which teachers’ performance is threatening to the patriarchal institutions, causing further surveillance upon women and their role. Yet, in contrast, an analogy of performance also can allow teachers to subvert hegemonic patriarchal practices. Central to this discussion are notions of threat, corporeality, and temporality. The author concludes with examples of how teachers and researchers have successfully subverted and re-appropriated the teaching as performance analogy for the betterment of teachers, despite the complexity of this discourse.     

What about African American older women and depressive symptoms?

ABSTRACT

Depression is a major problem among African American older women; however, they also tend to be understudied as members of a multiple minority and oppressed group. As matriarchs and grandmothers in their families and communities, depression often emerges and becomes a detrimental problem for these older African American women. This study, a secondary data analysis, utilized the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) 2010 database to examine depression among older African American women. This article discusses the joint impact of age, social support, religion, caregiving, and physical health on depression among older community dwelling African American women. Findings indicate that age, physical health, and marital status as an aspect of social support were significant predictors of whether or not an older African American woman had ever had depression and whether or not she felt depressed in the past year. Receiving help from relatives as an aspect of social support also remained significant for participants who were feeling depressed in the past year. Implications for research, theory, and policy are offered.     

Professional Preparation for Older Women: A View from New Zealand

An increasing population of older women necessitates an inquiry into employment-related education for this group. The aim of this research was to examine professional preparation for women over the age of 50. Qualitative methods were employed; data were collected through interviews with 21 women working in New Zealand in early childhood education services. The findings have indicated both the benefits and challenges for older women. Further, a lack of recognition of the learning needs of older women is evident at the policy level. A reconsideration of professional preparation for older women is recommended.     

Feminist tales of teaching and resistance: reimagining gender in early childhood education (Reggio Emilia,Italy)

ABSTRACT

This article investigates whether the memories of women’s movements that grew out of the Italian Resistance to the Nazi-Fascist Regime during the Second World War have left any legacy to women teachers in early childhood education. The article focuses on the case of internationally renowned and high-quality schools for young children, the municipal schools of a northern Italian town called Reggio Emilia. In contrast to much of the literature on gender and early childhood education, this paper reveals that many women teachers in these schools think of themselves as agents of social change, and that this is tied to their memories of the Italian Resistance.     

Education,work and earnings of Peruvian women

This study describes trends in educational attainment among women in Peru, and examines the determinants of educational attainment, labor force participation and employment, and earnings. Data were obtained from the Peruvian Living Standards Survey among a sample of 5644 women aged 20-59 years. Findings indicate that parents' educational variables had a positive and statistically significant relationship with the educational attainment of their daughters. The impact declined over time from older to younger cohorts. School reforms improved women's access to education. Education became more universal and compulsory over time. Daughters of mothers with white collar occupations had higher levels of schooling than farmers' daughters. The effects of fathers' education was larger. There was a wider gap between farmers and nonfarmers. Textbooks, teachers, and number of grades offered were the only primary school inputs that showed any clear cohort trend in their effect on years of schooling. As primary schools became more available, textbooks had a greater impact on school attainment. The impact of textbooks was larger for women than for men. The number of grades offered had a large positive effect which increased across cohorts from older to younger. Findings suggest weak effects of school reforms on women's likelihood of participating in the paid or unpaid labor force. Years of schooling had a very small and negative effect on total labor force participation. Woman's paid employment was influenced by age, education and training, household characteristics, and family's unearned income. Educational attainment had a small positive effect on participation in paid employment for younger women and no effect for older women. The average rate of return in paid employment to primary education was about 12%. Primary education had the highest rate of return. The return to job tenure was higher for younger women.     

Education,vocationalism and economic recovery: the case against witchcraft1

Abstract

The widening of access to higher education for mature students has been placed on the policy agenda by the government, in part as a response to demographic changes which will reduce the number of young graduates entering the labour market. This article examines the current position of students in the over 30 age group in UK universities with reference to their entrance qualifications, degree attainment and first destinations on leaving university. It compares the experience of men and women in this age group with young students in the conventional undergraduate population and questions whether a university degree is sufficient to overcome the barriers to the labour market experienced by older graduates. Finally it challenges the access model of equal opportunity implicit in the government's White Paper on Higher Education.     

Apple Jumper,Teacher Babe,and Bland Uniformer Teachers: Fashioning Feminine Teacher Bodies

A student teacher group's conversation about teacher clothing as reflective of certain kinds of reprehensible or desirable teacher identities provoked the writing of this article. I use a feminist poststructuralist analysis to explore the three categories of women teachers' dress suggested by the student teachers as signifiers of women teachers' subjectivities discursively produced within the contexts of schooling. The article also challenges the three categories as constructions produced by this student teacher group in their positionality as young, White, middle-class, heterosexual female novice teachers in the Southeast region of the United States. This inquiry highlights the limitations and constrictions of women teachers' institutionalized subjectivities and suggests ways in which these limitations and constrictions offer sites for resistance, specifically in relation to clothing choices that shape and reflect a feminine teacher body.     

从参与状况看高校女教师的进取意识

本以1980－1999年“中国教育事业统计年鉴”中有关数据为基础,结合中加合作国际课题组,武汉大学妇女研究中心等组织对高校女教师的现状调查数据,通过分析认为高校女教师参与状况不佳的原因在于进取意识的薄弱,提出要使高校女教师充分参与高等教育,必须培养女性主体意识,树立进取意识。     

Editor’s Overview: A 20-Year Content Review of Research on the Topic of Developmental Mentoring Relationships Published in the Mentoring & Tutoring Journal

Abstract

Empirical work from both sides of the Atlantic has been developed which attempts to bring the generations together in the context of school‐based projects and curriculum development. Against this background this article will seek to explore the impact that older people can have in an educational setting and examine the mutual effect this has in developing and promoting intergenerational understanding. This action‐research study (for The Beth Johnson Foundation, Stoke‐on‐Trent) elicited the views and experiences of children, older mentors and teachers involved in an intergenerational mentoring scheme. The study reveals that there have been significant gains for the children, older mentors (people over 50) and teachers involved in the intergenerational mentoring scheme. This article reports only the concise summary findings from a selected representative mix of the data gathered for the original action research. Evidence suggests that the mentors have become a wise advisor and friend to identified individuals and groups of children in the class setting, and that old and young people enjoy and value working together in an educational environment for the mutual benefit of each other. The study concludes that this evaluation should act as a base‐line towards some extended research into the sustainability of older mentors working in schools, and the humanising effect this has at whole‐school level in terms of improving intergenerational perception and cooperation and developing ‘active citizenship’ in schools.     

BOOK REVIEW

This investigation addressed the effects of teaching styles, student cognitive styles, matched and mismatched conditions, student age, and student gender in relation to course grades in community college education. The Gregorc Style Delineator was used to determine the dominant cognitive styles of 16 teachers and 207 students on two campuses of a comprehensive community college. Data were analyzed according to two analysis of variance models. The findings indicated that concrete sequential teachers assigned significantly lower grades to students than did teachers dominant in any other style and that students 25 years of age and older received significantly higher grades than younger students, except when matched with concrete random teachers. Although many authors have suggested that students whose cognitive styles match those of their teachers tend to attain higher grades, findings in this study contradicted the literature and indicated that mismatched students performed better academically.