Outside the classroom. Learning spaces in girls' school stories in Britain and the United States, 1910 - 1960

Description

This paper explores a range of scenes set outside the classroom in the fictional world of girls’ schools stories in Britain and the United States between 1910 and 1960 to highlight the range of femininities presented to their readers. Worries over girls’ physical and mental health undermined campaigns for an academic education that was equal to that of their brothers. The paper draws on a wider project that examines the school story genre as a form of informal education for young teenage girls into the construction of a middle-class femininity that transcended national borders. Alongside details school life with its rituals of conformity, encounters with nature and the natural world, with all its unpredictability, provided the context for the heroines to escape from the confines of the classroom, and exhibit their capacity for initiative, quick thinking and independence. Jessie Graham Flower (Josephine Chase), Dorita Fairlie-Bruce and Elinor Brent-Dyer created imaginary worlds where the reader could envision herself in the role of the heroine as she faced packs of howling wolves (Grace Harlowe) or endured fog at sea in a small boat (Dimsie Maitland). Unlikely as the readers were to face these perils in their own lives, these adventures served to create respect or admiration for the characters as adolescent role models in their more mundane daily lives. The paper begins with a brief discussion of the use of fiction as a resource for researching girls’ informal education. It then highlights G. Stanley Hall’s (1908) reflection on the education of girls and preparation for motherhood, before offering some examples from the series books of how the unpredictability of nature provided the vehicle whereby the action of fictional heroines challenged contemporary medical discourses of fragile femininity.

Period	31 Jan 0004
Event title	Geographies of Gender conference : null
Event type	Conference
Location	Winchester , United Kingdom
Degree of Recognition	National