Gender and Professionalization: An Institutional Analysis of Teacher Education and Unionism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

The central thesis of this article is that professionalization projects, such as those endorsed by normal schools and schools of education, contributed to vertical and horizontal divisions of labor by constructing differing views of professionalization, which became associated with and gave institutional support to gendered assumptions about women and teaching in general. Local unions, such as the Chicago Federation of Teachers, provided a counterforce to these divisions of labor, by skirting concerns about certification and instead working directly with practicing teachers on issues of authority and autonomy. Unfortunately, these efforts by local unions often occurred within the shadow of national associations that tried to balance the interests of educational administrators and teachers. This balance limited the influence of local proposals that challenged men's advantage relative to women in the educational community.