Good Women and Old Stereotypes: Retired Teachers Talk About Teaching

In the quintessential women’s profession, how have women interpreted their role and their work? We looked for an answer to this question in interviews with 12 retired women teachers and in the images they communicated of their lives and careers. To give readers some sense of these women’s personalities and motivations, and of the social and historical contexts within which they made their choices, we begin with brief biographies, in order of seniority, of the teachers we interviewed.