Published
November 30, 1994
Copyright Notice
Open Access and Copyright Policy
Historical Studies in Education/Revue d’histoire de l’éducation (HSE/RHÉ) provides immediate open access to its content according to the Budapest Open Access Initiative. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of our articles. All journal content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Authors are not charged article processing fees for publication. Immediate open access to content is provided on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Users may not modify HSE-RHÉ publications, nor use them for commercial purposes without asking prior permission from the publisher and the author.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
a. Authors retain copyright and grant HSE-RHÉ the right of first publication.
b. Authors who wish to enter into subsequent, separate, commercial or non-commercial, contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal’s published version of their work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), must request permission from the journal. Subsequent publications must include an acknowledgement of its initial publication in HSE-RHÉ.
c. Authors who wish to revise, transform, or build upon their HSE-RHÉ publications must request permission from the journal to publish the revised material. The resulting publication must include an acknowledgement of its initial form and publication in HSE-RHÉ.
Abstract
This particular article arises out of a longitudinal empirical study on teacher socialization with specific regard to relations of gender, ethnicity, and race. It focuses on a number of observations about Ontario teachers in the 1930s:
1. The overall percentage of men in teaching rose, but much more so in rural areas than in the cities.
2. Salaries of teachers dropped considerably during this time.
3. There was a significant change in teacher certification procedures, within which gender played a large role. Salaries were also affected by these certification changes.
4. Average ages of teachers increased significantly during this decade.
5. In general, teachers had more years of teaching experience than their colleagues did in the previous decade. However, there were significant gender differences in these figures.
6. Both formal and informal policies against the employment of married women as teachers were enforced.
This article details these observations, and then discusses what significance they may have had, in the context of overall 'gender relations' among teachers in Ontario. A number of relevant sources for the 1930s were examined: annual reports of the Ontario Department of Education; annual reports, minutes, and handbooks of the Toronto Board of Education; and contemporary newspapers. In addition, reprinted transcripts of two groups of interviews have been drawn on—six men and women who taught (and later became principals) in Toronto in the 1930s, and a number of women teachers from the 1930s who were inter viewed for a 1980s study on women's experiences during the Depression.
