Female education

Islamic women played an important role in founding many educational institutions. So, Fatima Mohammed al-Fihri founded the University of Al-Karaouin in 859. Her work was continued by the Ayyubid dynasty , in the XII and XIII centuries, 160 mosques and madrassas were opened in Damascus, 26 of them were financed by women with the help of wakuf (property intended for religious or charitable purposes). Royal patrons in about half of these organizations were women. ^[one]

According to a 12th-century Sunni scholar, Ibn Asakir , Islamic women had the opportunity to receive an education during the Middle Ages. He wrote that women could study, earn degrees (Ijazas), and also become scientists and teachers. This was especially common in educated families who sought to give a better education to both their sons and daughters. ^[2]

Ibn Azakir himself was once taught by 80 different women teachers.

Women's education in Islamic countries originates from the wives of Muhammad : Khadija was a successful business woman, and 'Aisha was a connoisseur of hadiths . According to one of the hadiths attributed to Muhammad , he praised the women of Medina for their craving for religious knowledge ^[3] .

Among women, it was not accepted to enroll in official classes as students, but they often attended informal lectures and seminars in mosques, madrassas, and other public places. Although women were not prohibited by law from getting an education, some men did not approve of this. For example, Muhammad ibn al-Hajj (died in 1336) was shocked by the fact that in his time, some women unofficially attended lectures ^[4] .

Muslims who arrived in West Africa at the end of the 19th century brought with them an extremely conservative policy on women's education. ^[five]

In ancient Egypt, women had the right to receive an education. And, subsequently, even serve at court.

Medieval Period

In medieval Europe, girls and women from noble families received education, they studied literature, art, foreign languages. They were also taught embroidery, dancing, playing musical instruments, singing and other forms of art. They also studied scripture.

Education was subjected to class division, as was society itself: some writers, such as Vincent of Beauvais , write that girls from noble families need education because of their future position in society.

Early New Time. The Age of Humanism

In early modern Europe, the issue of female education became quite commonplace, in other words, it was a common place. Around 1405, Leonardo Bruni wrote a book called De studies et letteris ^[6] dedicated to Batista di Montefeltro, daughter of Antonio II da Montefeltro , Duke of Urbino . In this book, he endorses the study of Latin, but opposes the study of arithmetic, geometry, astrology, and rhetoric. Studying the works of the Renaissance writer Isotta Nogarola , the British historian Lisa Jardine ^[7] notes that (in the middle of the 15th century) "Noble women are supposed to receive a good upbringing, but not an education that does not suit them at all." The “Book of the Three Virtues” by Christine of Pisa , written at about the same time as the book of Bruni, establishes what a lady or baroness should be able to do according to status. ^[8] Women in Europe at that time received a very good education compared to what other women received in other countries. Or rather did not receive. European women received a full and quality education. They studied the humanities and sciences, languages, theology, and art.

Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote in detail about education in his book De pueris instituendis, written twenty years earlier, in 1529 ^[9] . The book is not entirely devoted to the education of women; in his work, he approves with approval the difficulties faced by Thomas More , who trained his entire family ^[10] . In 1523, Juan Luis Vives , a follower of Erasmus of Rotterdam, wrote in Latin the book “De Institutione Feminae Christianae” ^[11] , which was subsequently translated ^[12] for the future Queen of England, Mary I , “Christian Education.” These books, as well as traditional educational literature , were religious ^[13] .

Queen Elizabeth I of England received a good liberal arts education, and her teacher Roger Asham was pleased with her ^[14] . The education received was rather aimed at educating her as a ruler, and was not suitable for women in general. In those days, almost no girls were educated in schools; it was still believed that education should be obtained at home. Jan Amos Comenius believed that women should receive formal education. ^[15]

New time

In the Enlightenment, the idea of ​​universal female education, which was considered reasonable and free, is widely disseminated. The writer Mary Wollstonecraft used these terms.

Real progress in the field of institutions offering secular education for women began in the West in the 19th century, when the first separate education colleges for girls were founded. They appeared in the middle of the century. Alfred Tennyson 's epic poem, The Princess: A Medley, is a satire on female education - in 1848, when the Royal College was opened in London, it was still a controversial issue. Emily Davis , who promoted female education in the 1860s, founded the College of Girton in 1869, and Anna Klau founded the Newham College in 1875.

The playwright William Schwenk Gilbert, who wrote a parody of Tennyson's poem, addressed the themes of feminism (as was later interpreted) and higher education for women in his works Princess (1870) and Princess Ida (1883). Since women began to receive higher education, university scientific trends began to appear and the training of teachers among women in the masses began to develop. Basically, women became primary school teachers. It took several generations for women to gain access to then still fully male educational institutions.

Educational Reform

Difficult questions about obstacles to education and employment continued to form the so-called "feminist" thinking. This was described, for example, in Harriet Martino's article "Female Industry", published in the Edinburgh Journal in 1859. The economy was changing, and women's fate remained the same. However, Martino, unlike Francis Power Cobb , for various reasons, was more restrained and did not support the emerging struggle for the right to vote.

Over time, the efforts of women such as Davis and representatives of the Langham group (dealing with issues of female education and employment) began to bear fruit. King's College (1848) and Bedford College (1849) in London opened their doors to women since 1848, and in 1862 Davis set up a committee that asked universities for permission to take so-called “Local Examinations” for women (school exams (on places) by commissions from representatives of universities), established shortly before this, in 1858. And she partially succeeded. A year later, she released the book Higher Education for Women. Together with Lee Smith, they founded the first higher educational institution for women, in which there were only five students, who became known as Girton College (part of Cambridge , 1873), and in 1879 Lady Margaret Hall founded a similar institution in Oxford . A year earlier, Badford began to award degrees. Despite minor improvements, scientific degrees were of little benefit, and the life of the students was very difficult.

As part of the ongoing collaboration between feminists in the UK and America, Elizabeth Blackwell , the first woman to graduate in the United States with a medical degree (1849), gave lectures in the UK with the support of the Langham Group. They also helped Elizabeth Garrett take the impregnable walls of British medical education, despite terrible resistance, eventually giving her the opportunity to continue her education in France. Garrett’s exceptionally successful campaign to run for school in London in 1870 is yet another example of how a small group of determined women began to take up influential positions at local government and community level organizations. Such a result was difficult to predict in view of the laws and regulations in force that have not yet proven themselves.

In Ancient Russia, the first known female school was founded in Kiev, at the St. Andrew’s Monastery, by the nun-princess Anna Vsevolodovna in 1068 ^[16] . By decree of Peter I of January 24, 1724, nuns were instructed to teach orphans to girls in literacy and needlework, and obstetric schools were established under Elizabeth Petrovna . The girls received education at home, under the guidance of specially invited teachers and governesses.

In fact, the history of female education in Russia began when Catherine II established the Educational Society of Noble Maidens on May 5, 1764, which became known as the Smolny Institute , and in January 1765, the Meshchansky School . The number of women's educational institutions began to grow when Empress Maria Fyodorovna stood at the head of women's education in Russia and the Mariinsky Office was formed. At the same time, there was a qualitative change in education towards upbringing - the training of "good spouses, good mothers and good housewives." In the first half of the 19th century, private boarding houses for noble women and government all-inclusive lower schools began to appear in the province.

In 1856, Alexander II ordered the start of the creation of women’s schools in the provincial cities, close to the gymnasium in the course of teaching. In the province, schools of the first category (with a six-year course) and the second category (with a three-year course) began to be created. In April 1857, the journal “ Russian Pedagogical Bulletin ” began to be published in St. Petersburg, which carried out the idea of ​​the need for a broad statement of female education in Russia. One of the publishers-editors of this journal, N. A. Vyshnegradsky , organized the Mariinsky Women's School on March 19, 1858, from which public women's education for women began ^[17] . Since 1860, women began to appear at university lectures; however, only in 1869 did the first higher courses for women appear.

In 1878, the University of Calcutta was one of the first universities to open its graduates to advanced degrees - earlier than any university in the UK did the same. This circumstance was mentioned during the controversy over the Ilbert bill in 1833, when the issue of whether Indian judges could decide the fate of British criminals was being decided. Women took a very active part in this dispute. The English women who opposed the bill argued that Bengal women, whom they considered ignorant, were not properly respected among Indian men; therefore, Indian men should not be allowed to investigate cases in which British women were involved. Bengali women who spoke in support of the bill said in response that they were more educated than English women, noting that there were more Indian women with advanced degrees compared to those with Indian degrees (however, there is no documentary evidence of this). ^[18]

Traditionally, the Roman Catholic Church has expressed its concern for female education, creating monastic orders led by the clergy. Among the monastic orders, one can distinguish Ursulinsky (1535) and the Order of the Sacred Heart of the Virgin Mary (1849). ^[19] Girls also received a monastic education - it was given by nuns in the walls of the monastery . Such an idea was born in France in the XII century and spread throughout the world. To become a student of a modern monastery school, you do not have to be a Catholic. Also, boys can now receive a monastic education, especially in India.

In the United States, women have much more opportunities than before to get an education and further career. For example, in 2005/2006, women received 62% of junior degrees, 58% of all bachelor's degrees, 60% of master's degrees, and 50% of all doctoral degrees. ^[20]

History Literature

• Ivashchenko N.I. Female education // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Batsu Mackin (1673), An Essay to Revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen, in Religion, Manners, Arts & Tongues
• Anna Julia Cooper (1892), Higher Education for Women
• Alice Zimmern (1898), The Rise of the Age of Education for Girls in England
• Thomas Woody (1929), The Development of Female Education in the United States , in 2 volumes.

Modern sources

• Bari Turner (1974), Equality for the Elect: the development of education for girls .