ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ‘feminisation’ of the teaching profession from a socio-historical perspective, with specific attention to the late 19th and the 20th century. It considers how discourses of teaching as ‘feminised’, in their various meanings, have evolved over time and which types of masculinities and femininities have been deemed suitable for the teaching profession. Teaching is constructed in some quarters as a ‘feminised’ profession, although this view has not always prevailed nor carried the same meaning. Teaching opportunities for women initially remained limited, as significant cultural and legal barriers to their employment subsisted, and as girls often left school as soon as they were deemed to have acquired the skills enabling them to perform wifehood and motherhood. In relation to age, a small body of research has highlighted how, in contemporary contexts, older teachers, and particularly older women teachers, can attract misrecognition and, as a result, struggle in securing a teaching position.
