Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the British Educational Research Association, University of Exeter, England, 12-14 September 2002
Gender and the Teaching Profession in Wales, 1900-50
Sian Rhiannon Williams
School of Education, University of Wales Institute Cardiff
The history of women and gender in the teaching profession is a topic which has been studied in relation to England, to other parts of the British Isles and elsewhere since the early 1980s. For example, the work of Frances Widdowson, (1983) Alison Oram, (1996) Diana Copleman (1996) and Felicity Hunt (1991) in England, O’Leary (1987) in Ireland and Helen Corr (1983; 1990) in Scotland, while Prentice and Theobald, who in 1991, drew attention to the need to account for regional variation in the gender structure and practices of the profession, have done much to encourage an international comparative perspective as have De Lyon and Migninolo (1989) Weiler and Middleton (1999) and Albiselti (1993).
However, this is not the case in Wales. Historians of education have rarely engaged with issues relating to gender, while women’s and gender history is still undeveloped. Major gaps exist in our knowledge of, for example, the history of women’s employment in Wales, as Deirdre Beddoe has shown in her important study of women in twentieth century Wales (Beddoe, 2000). Gareth Evans’ pioneering work on the education of girls in Wales (Evans, 1990), demonstrates the importance of teaching as a career for women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but this is not a study of teaching and ends in 1914. So, since teaching, with nursing, was the main professional occupation for girls in Wales for much of the twentieth century, and, since that throughout that period, as today, women teachers far outnumbered their male colleagues, a historical study of gender in the teaching profession in Wales is overdue. This paper begins the process of ‘filling a gap’ in Welsh history and providing a meaningful context for comparative studies. It is also relevant to present day concerns in Wales about the imbalance of men and women in teaching.
My work, to date has concentrated upon South Wales. Teaching was a particularly significant profession there, where, due to the predominance of coal mining and other heavy industries, career opportunities were limited for both men and women, but especially so for women. The dramatic changes experienced in the region during the boom period of the coal industry followed by the depression of the inter-war years and the dislocation that this and the war which followed caused, had a marked effect on employment opportunities, and on the teaching profession. It is, therefore, a particularly interesting place and period to study.
Preliminary work to date has included a review of relevant literature, the recording and transcription of a series of recorded oral interviews with twenty former teachers from the area and the initial investigation of a few of the many available primary sources. This has shown that there is ample scope for comparative work. Previous studies have raised questions which need to be explored in relation to Wales, not merely about the structure of the profession, but also in terms of the life and work of teachers, their status in society and the ways in which they have been represented.
This paper will, firstly, examine the overall pattern of women’s employment in teaching in Wales in the period and secondly, raise questions and issues for further investigation which have arisen in the course of the preliminary work.
Much of the international research on the history of women in teaching has focused upon what is termed – although it is a contested term – the feminisation of the profession; that is, the numerical predominance of women over men and their concentration in particular sectors, which has been a common feature in almost all westernised countries, but with some exceptions, to a greater or lesser extent.
The feminist analysis of this process emphasises the economic, social and cultural reasons for women’s dominance: – a brief summary would be that women were, in almost all countries, paid less than men teachers for doing the same work. The fact that they cost less to employ meant that they provided an army of cheap labour for the authorities. Teaching – and teaching young children in particular, was considered to be an extension of their caring and nurturing role in society, and this meant that they became concentrated in the lower status sectors of what was seen as a fitting profession for girls. Consequently, the profession itself became less attractive to men at a time when, generally speaking, there were far more, and better paid, career opportunities for boys anyway.
This interpretation is, of course, a simplification, and feminist historians have themselves problematised the process researching various regions and sectors in different periods to demonstrate a range of local variation which defies simplistic categorisation. For example, differences between urban and rural areas, between Catholic and non-Catholic countries and in institutional and organisational structures in various cultural and social contexts (Albiselti, 1993). Within the British Isles, for example, one difference is that in Scotland, a tradition of co-education meant that opportunities for women in teaching were more limited than in England and Wales where girls’ schools provided an all-female environment and a ladder to headship.
What of Wales? To what extent does the Welsh experience mirror that of other countries, and what are the matters specific to Wales and the comparative issues which may arise?
By way of introduction, it is worth saying that in Wales, it is has been assumed that teaching has held a special place in the occupational history of the nation, along with coalmining, slate quarrying and preaching.
Wales, it is said, was traditionally famous for three major exports, coal, water and teachers. Recent work by Robert Smith (1999) suggests that teachers (although he says nothing of gender differences) held an ambivalent social status in Victorian Wales, and there is certainly scope to question the assumption that teachers were always highly respected during this period and afterwards. Nevertheless, much evidence exists to support the view that teaching was held in high esteem in Wales, and that, as such it was felt to be a suitable occupation for its daughters. Asher Tropp, the historian of the profession notes that ‘ The high status of the teacher was particularly true in nonconformist Wales. Welsh nonconformity had a widespread national and patriotic appeal with which teachers were associated’ (Tropp, 1957, p.35), while Margaret Miles, a head teacher and educationist, born in Liverpool of Welsh parentage wrote in her memoir of her teaching career,
‘ Teaching had always been thought of as an honourable profession in my family. It was safer and more suitable for girls than others were then thought to be; and also, in the Welsh and nonconformist milieu from which I came, it was respected for what it was’.
(Miles, 1966, p.36)
My interviewees, who went into teaching in the inter-war years all shared this view of teaching as a respectable job, but above all perhaps, a safe and financially secure employment.
Respected or otherwise, teachers were certainly statistically significant in Wales , and teaching was of particular importance as a career for women.
The late Gareth Evans’ work (1990) shows that the number of women exceeded the number of men in teaching for the first time during the 1870’s, a time when the majority had become teachers via the pupil teacher route. By 1876, approximately 60% of teachers in elementary schools were women, a figure which had risen to 71% by 1905 when the first Board of Education figures for Wales are available, and which peaked at 74% in 1921 before declining somewhat to just under 70% in the 1930s. The balance was slightly more equal after the second world war, but always with a very sizeable majority of women (Williams, 1985, Vol II. pp. 225-6).
(Note that all statistics which follow, unless otherwise noted, are calculated from tables based upon census and Board of Education figures published in Williams, 1985, Vols. I and II).
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Between 1911 and 1931, full time teachers accounted for over 1 in 3 of the professional classes, and were still more than 1 in 4 in 1951. When male and female teachers are recorded separately, the greater involvement of women in teaching is clear. Separate figures for men and women have not yet been obtained for the secondary sector before 1931, but, in 1911, women elementary teachers comprised 55% of professionals and male elementary teachers, 18%. In 1951 when secondary staff are included in the figures, the percentages are 33% and 19% respectively. The fact that teaching becomes less significant statistically for women after the second world war can be accounted for, at least in part, by the fact that there were more openings in other professions by that time. The sheer number of teachers is also significant; they increased from almost 14,000 in 1909 to almost 17, 000 in 1931 to around 17, 500 in 1951( men and women), and that does not include Welsh teachers employed in England, of which there were surely many thousands more.
There are some trends in the statistics which need explanation. Firstly, the proportion and number of women in teaching in Wales rose until 1921 and declined slightly thereafter. It seems that the depression in the 1930’s affected the figures; there was certainly considerable unemployment among teachers at this time; it could be that the fact that the marriage bar was introduced in most authorities in 1922-3 contributed to this, (although, in general, it seems that married women were kept out in order to provide posts for newly qualified unmarried women rather than for men), and it could also be that careers in other professions, particularly the civil service were more accessible by this time.
Another feature in Wales (as in England) was the high proportion of uncertificated and supplementary women teachers and a far lower proportion of certificated women teachers. For example, in elementary schools in 1905, 51% held certificates while the rest were either uncertificated or supplementary teachers. The latter group needed only to have a clean bill of health to be employed – no training or observation whatsoever. By 1937, which is the last date when comparable figures are available the percentage of women certificated elementary teachers was still only 56%. So, women teachers were less well qualified than their male counterparts at this time, as indeed, they were for many years afterwards, despite the existence of equal numbers of training institutions for men and women in Wales.
One striking feature of the structure of the profession in Wales, as in many other countries, is the fact that historically, women have been concentrated in elementary and primary schools, particularly in the infant sector, whereas men have dominated in secondary. Part of the present concern in Wales about the lack of male role models for boys is the fact that women are now overtaking men in secondary schools too. Recent statistics show that the change did not occur until the mid 1990s (Office for National Statistics, 2000).
The elementary / secondary divide further reflected the difference in qualifications between women and men, particularly between graduate and non-graduate teachers. In 1950, before teaching became a graduate profession, 86% of women teachers were non-graduates in that year compared with 66% of men teachers (Williams, Vol. II, p. 226). At that time too, very few women were headteachers of mixed primary schools whereas most infant heads were women; later, with the growth of comprehensive education and the amalgamation of former single sex schools into co-educational institutions, women lost their roles as secondary headteachers, with the result that only 6.9% of secondary school heads were female in 1991 (Beddoe, 2000, p. 174).
Although, as shown, teaching was an important occupation for women in Wales, interestingly, the proportion of women in elementary teaching was lower in that country than in England and Wales as a whole in the early twentieth century:
Women Teachers in Elementary Schools as a percentage of total Elementary School Teachers, 1905-37
Year Wales England and Wales
1905 71.1 76.3
1911 71.0 74.8
1921 74.3 77.3
1931 69.0 74.0
1937 67.3 71.3
(Source: Board of Education Annual Reports of Public Education quoted in Williams, 1985, pp 225-6 and Oram, 1996, p.230)
Although the difference is not very marked, it is a feature which requires explanation. The most sensible answer would seem to be that due to the nature of industry and the economy in Wales, there were limited job opportunities for men as well as for women, so that a higher proportion of men became teachers in Wales than in England, but there were cultural differences too, and these might have been significant. Further research is required to investigate any differences between England and Wales in the secondary sector, and also to examine variations within Wales itself.
However, the work is not exclusively concerned with ‘feminisation’ and the gender structure of the profession; I am also interested in teachers’ lives. Wendy Robinson, writing about the future of research in this field says,
‘ Whilst there is a growing literature on the implications of a feminized teaching profession… a much closer, contextualized examination of stereotypes, representations and assumptions about the position, quality and status of women teachers is required’
(Robinson, 2000, p.61).
So, in addition to mapping the overall structure, the aim is to examine women in teaching the Welsh context more closely. Many gender issues were brought to the fore during this period; for example, women’s suffrage, the differentiated curriculum, equal pay, the marriage bar in the professions and the effect of the two world wars. During the remainder of this paper, I shall briefly touch upon some of these and raise questions which need to be asked and answered in the future.