Published
December 12, 2008
Keywords
- Women teachers,
- teacher federations,
- feminism,
- human rights
Copyright Notice
Copyright and Open Access Policy
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0)
1. Copyright
Authors retain copyright of content they publish in Historical Studies in Education / Revue d’histoire de l’éducation and grant the journal the right of first publication.
2. Open Access License
All content published in Historical Studies in Education / Revue d’histoire de l’éducation is made freely available online immediately upon publication under an open license, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0).
The full terms of the license are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
3. No Additional Restrictions
Published content is immediately, permanently, and freely available in full text online. There are no delayed open access restrictions or timed embargoes on content. The journal does not apply technical protection measures, moving walls, or paywalls.
There are no subscriptions. No subscription fees are charged to readers.
No fees are charged to authors. (There are no article processing charges, or APCs.)
4. Directory of Open Access Journals
Historical Studies in Education / Revue d’histoire de l’éducation is indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
Historical Studies in Education / Revue d’histoire de l’éducation
v. 3 September 2026
Licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Abstract
For most of a century, female elementary teachers in Ontario's public schools were represented professionally by the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario (FWTAO), while their male counterparts were members of a separate organization, the Ontario Public School Men Teachers' Federation. Increasingly, a minority of women teachers sought the right to join the male body, which dropped "Men" from its official name in 1982. One of these, Margaret Tomen, launched both a legal and a human rights case to overturn regulations which forbade her from leaving FWTAO. The court proceedings upheld the status quo, but the human rights appeal resulted in victory for Ms. Tomen. By this time, the two rival federations had agreed to unite, and in 1998, the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario was founded. The underlying issue of how best to define and achieve equality for women was left unresolved, however - a challenge for subsequent generations.
