For Home, Country, and Race : : Gender, Class, and Englishness in the Elementary School, 1880-1914 / / Stephen J. Heathorn.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Heathorn, Stephen J.,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2016]; ©2000
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: Studies in Gender and History
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (288 p.)

The crucial role of compulsory schooling in the fostering of national identities is dynamically demonstrated in Stephen Heathorn's study of the elementary school system in England at the turn of the century. His book analyses how a specific ideal of English national heritage was consciously nurtured by the professionalizing educational establishment of the period. Implicit within this ideal was an ideology that reinforced gender, class, and race distinctions.Heathorn bases his work on extensive primary material, including more than 450 different elementary schoolbooks. He unpacks the potent symbols and narratives of imperial-nationalist social prescriptions and establishes the centrality in the classroom of a racialized notion of Englishness dependent on middle-class assumptions about 'appropriate' class and gender roles. According to Heathorn, these social prescriptions marked a subtle shift from the mid-Victorian liberal discourse of self and moral improvement.This insightful, well-documented study showcases the multifaceted nature of gender history, and explores the intersection of social, political, and cultural factors in the history of schooling and identity construction.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Reading the Nation - Elementary School Culture and National Identity -- 1. Citizen Authors and the Language of Citizenship -- 2. The Syntax of National Identity: The Liberal Master Narrative -- 3. Ethnicity and National Belonging -- 4. Imagining the Racial 'Other' Within -- 5. The Home of the Race': The Familial Imaginings of National Identity in Elementary Schooling -- 6. Narratives and Rituals of National Belonging -- Conclusion: 'For Home, Country, and Race' -- Appendices -- Notes -- Select Bibliography -- Index -- Backmatter