Senior Instructors and the Women's Movement in the Struggle for Female Education, Illustrated by the Example of Girls' Secondary Education in Hamburg

Abstract

The history of girls' secondary education in Germany was marked at the turn of the century by the battle to establish standards and girls' secondary school education's connection with the authority system. The most bitter conflicts between the interest groups of girls' school teachers and the interests of the female teachers involved in the women's movement took place in Prussia, although the state seemed to have played a more moderating role. In 1870, girls' secondary schools gained equal status with the middle schools, as a first step to their incorporation into higher secondary education. Educators directing girls' schools viewed this "achievement" as the first success of their vocational policy. Educators at girls' schools were either male teachers trained in teachers' training schools who aspired to social advancement by being promoted to a girls' higher secondary institution, or they were academic teachers who for various reasons were unable to get a position in boys' higher secondary education. In general the 1880s were a period of pronounced crisis, in which academic teachers had in some cases to wait longer than ten years for a permanent position in boys' higher secondary education (Herrlitz and Titze, 1977, p. 354). The girls' school system, which was of a lower status, offered a way out for unemployed teachers. Therefore educators at girls' schools had a great interest for reasons of vocational policy to enhance their own occupational status by improving the rated status of that type of school.