Alison Prentice – författare

The combined effort of 19 feminist educators and theorists from four continents, this exciting collection of essays is designed to be as wide-ranging intellectually as it is geographically. Probing the abilities (and dis-abilities) of women in education from the mid-19th century to the present, it brings historical analysis, classroom research, and theoretical reflection to bear on gender issues in schooling and higher education. 'What about the boys?' cry alarmists who fear a feminist takeover in schools. 'What about them indeed?', say students of women's education who wonder if it is now time to engage more explicitly and directly with the politics of male advantage in education, as well as in economic, political, social and cultural life.

The combined effort of 19 feminist educators and theorists from four continents, this exciting collection of essays is designed to be as wide-ranging intellectually as it is geographically. Probing the abilities (and dis-abilities) of women in education from the mid-19th century to the present, it brings historical analysis, classroom research, and theoretical reflection to bear on gender issues in schooling and higher education. 'What about the boys?' cry alarmists who fear a feminist takeover in schools. 'What about them indeed?', say students of women's education who wonder if it is now time to engage more explicitly and directly with the politics of male advantage in education, as well as in economic, political, social and cultural life.

Canadian women have worked, individually and collectively, at homeand abroad, as creators of historical memory. This engaging collectionof essays seeks to create an awareness of the contributions made bywomen to history and the historical profession from 1870 to 1970 inEnglish Canada. Creating Historical Memory explores the widerange of careers that women have forged for themselves as writers andpreservers of history within, outside, and on the margins of theacademy. The authors suggest some of the institutional and intellectuallocations from which English Canadian women have worked as historiansand attempt to problematize in different ways and to varying degrees,the relationship between women and historical practice.The authors raise many interesting questions about how genderinfluences historical consciousness and whether looking at the pastthrough women's eyes alters the view. Women engaged in history ina wide variety of ways -- as authors of fiction, popular history,juvenilia, and drama -- as well as more academic research andpublishing. They worked as individuals, as both professional writersand academics, and within formal and informal communities of women suchas religious groups or local clubs. The essays also talk about thebarriers that existed for women who wanted to be recognized ashistorians and teachers of history and point out how gender differenceshave coloured perceptions of what constitutes history and who shouldwrite that history. This anthology shows how, instead of beingintimidated or defeated by their marginalization, women developed newand interesting ideas about what constituted history.The final essay in the volume assesses the impact the burgeoning offeminist history in the 1970s had on the academy and examines theconnection between feminist activism and women's history. Thisoriginal and lively book highlights the pioneering efforts of women indeveloping alternate paths to historical expression. It makes animportant contribution both to Canadian historical studies and towomen's and gender history in the West and will appeal toscholars interested in Canadian history, women's studies,literature, and historiography.

Canadian women have worked, individually and collectively, at homeand abroad, as creators of historical memory. This engaging collectionof essays seeks to create an awareness of the contributions made bywomen to history and the historical profession from 1870 to 1970 inEnglish Canada. Creating Historical Memory explores the widerange of careers that women have forged for themselves as writers andpreservers of history within, outside, and on the margins of theacademy. The authors suggest some of the institutional and intellectuallocations from which English Canadian women have worked as historiansand attempt to problematize in different ways and to varying degrees,the relationship between women and historical practice.The authors raise many interesting questions about how genderinfluences historical consciousness and whether looking at the pastthrough women's eyes alters the view. Women engaged in history ina wide variety of ways -- as authors of fiction, popular history,juvenilia, and drama -- as well as more academic research andpublishing. They worked as individuals, as both professional writersand academics, and within formal and informal communities of women suchas religious groups or local clubs. The essays also talk about thebarriers that existed for women who wanted to be recognized ashistorians and teachers of history and point out how gender differenceshave coloured perceptions of what constitutes history and who shouldwrite that history. This anthology shows how, instead of beingintimidated or defeated by their marginalization, women developed newand interesting ideas about what constituted history.The final essay in the volume assesses the impact the burgeoning offeminist history in the 1970s had on the academy and examines theconnection between feminist activism and women's history. Thisoriginal and lively book highlights the pioneering efforts of women indeveloping alternate paths to historical expression. It makes animportant contribution both to Canadian historical studies and towomen's and gender history in the West and will appeal toscholars interested in Canadian history, women's studies,literature, and historiography.

Nineteenth-century educational reformers were fond of an agricultural metaphor when it came to the provision of more and better schooling: even good land, they argued, had to be cultiated; othersie noxious weeds sprang up. In this study of education in Ontario from the establishment of Upper Canada to the end of Egerton Ryerson's career as chief superintendent of schools in 1876, Susan Houston and Alison Prentice explore the roots of the provincial public school system, set up to instill a work ethic and moral discipline appropriate to the new society, as well as the beginnings of separate schools.today the Ontario school system is once again the subject of intense and often bitter deabte. Many of the most contentious issues have deep and complex roots that go back to this era. Houston and Prentice tell the story of how Ontario came to have a universal school system of exceptional quality and shed valuable light on an area of current concern.

We tend to think of contemporary concern for reform in education as unprecedented in its intensity and scope. But as this book about mid-nineteenth century educational ideology shows, the urge to improve society through its schools has been with us a long time. The author examines the attitudes that shaped the Ontario public school system during its formative years, when Upper Canadians first explored and the provincial government finally adopted the principle of compulsory mass schooling under the auspices and control of the state.

Alison Prentice's 1977 groundbreaking monograph The School Promoters is a revisionist account of public education’s emergence. This latest edition includes a foreword and appendices by editors Bruce Curtis, Jennifer Henderson, and Mythili Rajiva, offering updated analysis and primary documents that deepen the understanding of Egerton Ryerson’s role in shaping Ontario’s educational system.Using a wide range of archival and published sources, The School Promoters provides a lucid account of the preoccupations of the White, mostly middle-class reformers connected to Ryerson, who were responsible for the advent of public education in Ontario as part of their concern with the future of Canadian society. This edition situates Prentice’s analysis of class domination within the context of settler-colonialism, exploring how education worked as a project for genocide as well as a means of social discipline. In particular, the editors expose how the proclaimed universality of public education was contradicted by the reformers’ logic for targeting paupers and Indigenous peoples with religious schooling. A reparative reading of Prentice's influential work, The School Promoters: Egerton Ryerson and His Circle, Second Edition highlights the relevance of this groundbreaking social history to contemporary analysis of Canada.