Teaching Women's History in Secondary Education: Constructing Gender Identity

Abstract

Women's history was included as a compulsory examination subject for all secondary school students in the Netherlands in 1990 and 1991. We present some of the results of a research project regarding the impact of teaching women's history to young women. Three levels of women's history content included in the curriculum and the exam are identified—women in traditionally male roles, women in traditionally female roles, and gender as a historical construct—and then considered in the individual responses of the young women included in the study. Attitudes of girls toward history and the implications of historical content for gender identity are the primary focus of this work.