ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on the position of women within the career of teaching. In doing so it addresses two particular issues. Firstly, as Hilary Burgess (1989) has pointed out, while teaching is a good job for a woman it is a career with prospects for men. In the course of this chapter we hope to explore that position-both by addressing the gendered structuration of teaching and by considering the opportunities and realities of career advancement for women in teaching. Second, teaching is often conceptualized as an occupation that has been feminized-that is, it is one of the liberal professions that has undergone feminization. The feminization thesis-that the gender balance of a profession is skewing towards women-has at least two meanings: that of numbers and that of ethos. While we are able to say with some confidence that the first kind of feminization is visible (the majority of the international teaching force is female), the second kind of feminization-suggesting new structures, organizations and ways of seeing/working-is harder to delineate. In the course of this chapter we draw some conclusions about the extent of feminization within the teaching profession.
