Compulsory Schooling Legislation: An Economic Analysis of Law and Social Change in the Nineteenth Century

Samples drawn from marriage registers in Birmingham and rural Norfolk, England, which report the occupational status for both the groom and his father, were matched with the 1851 and 1881 English censuses, which also contain occupational information. After performing several checks for selection bias, the author concludes: First, although most occupational mobility took place within 10 years of marriage—when the groom was roughly between the ages of 25 and 35—some continued after he turned 50. Second, approximately 35 percent of the men in each area eventually had an occupational status different from their fathers, and about 30 percent changed occupational status over their careers, belying the stereotype of impenetrable walls between classes in Victorian England. Third, upward occupational mobility seemed to slow in both regions as the period under consideration progressed. Fourth, although occupational mobility rates overall were comparable in these urban and rural areas, it was much easier for an individual to rise from an unskilled to a skilled status in Birmingham than it was in Norfolk. Fifth, and perhaps most surprising, literacy had a greater effect on social mobility in rural Norfolk than in urban Birmingham.     

Telling Stories about the Colonies: British and French Women in Algeria in the Nineteenth Century

This article recounts the stories told about Véronique Eugénie Allix‐Luce and her school for Muslim girls founded in Algiers in 1845. Drawing on English feminist writings, including correspondence and travel narratives, it explores how women, such as Barbara Bodichon and Bessie Rayner Parkes, constructed this French schoolteacher as a modern day heroine. French colonial authorities and women's travel narratives provide a more complicated portrait and reveal the weight of cultural and gender politics within the French ‘civilising mission’ that ultimately erased the memory of this initiative. By retelling the story of Mme Luce's school through the double perspective of British and French contemporaries, the article offers insight into the disappearance of women's roles in the French story of Algerian colonisation.     

Education for Social Change: Girls’ Secondary Schooling in Eritrea

One central pillar of the Eritrean revolution is the modernization of gender roles within Eritrean society, through education. This article, based on ethnographic style research, looks at the personal experiences of young women in Eritrean secondary schools. These girls’ journeys are discussed in terms of gender resistance, exemplifying modernity, and gender accommodation, exemplifying tradition. It is argued that these categories are not as dichotomous as claimed by the education policy agenda: in contrast, many young women strive to find a balance between the two. Ultimately, the success of the Eritrean model of the modernization of gender roles should be measured in terms of having created an environment in which women are able to strive to fulfil their aspirations.     

反教权主义与19世纪下半叶法国的教育世俗化

本文从探讨推动19世纪下半叶法国教育制度世俗化的意识形态——反教权主义着手,说明法国教育制度世俗化的独特性。反教权主义并不是一种系统的、统一的意识形态,而是反对教权过多干预社会和政治生活的思想体系。在19世纪下半叶的法国,以资产阶级共和派为主体的反教权主义者与政治上倾向于君主派的教权主义者之间的政治斗争推动了法国教育制度的世俗化。这种斗争决定了法国教育制度世俗化的进程及特征。     

A Motherland with a Radius of 300 Miles: Regional Identity in Russian Secondary and Post-Elementary Education from the Early Nineteenth Century to the War and Revolution

This article explores the problem of the interrelations between local and imperial identities by looking at the ways the regional diversity of the Empire was represented in Russian secondary and post-elementary education through the nineteenth-early twentieth centuries. Particular attention is given to the place of local studies in the school curriculum, as part of a broader movement that sought to establish an intermediary space between the individual and his or her immediate environment and the Empire as a whole - this phenomenon revealed the growing self-confidence of the provincial public.     

The Supreme Court in the Nineteenth Century

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, we find a Court which has not yet found its role, and whose principal impact is deciding which litigant wins in a particular lawsuit. Chief Justice John Marshall, appointed in 1801, changes that; he and his successor, Roger B. Taney, are the dominant figures in the Courts over which they preside. From 1801 until 1864-sixty-three years-the nation had only two Chief Justices; during the same time, it had fifteen presidents. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the Chief Justices are less dominant and influential, sharing their authority with several notable Associate Justices. By the end of the century, the Court is beginning to wrestle with the many problems facing the nation after a little more than a century of existence.     

Brain Physiology and the Mind in the Nineteenth Century

This article explores the integration of research and theory in nineteenth-century neurophysiology. Four generalities combine to explain their integration. They are the core beliefs of the neurologists, the pervasive habit of perceiving mind when observing behavior, the criteria for the existence of mind, and mind as an efficient cause. These generalities help explain specific choices made by certain researchers to work within the traditional model of the nervous system, to reject materialism, and to find intelligence and voluntary behaviors in physiological systems.     

Women Readers as Agents of Social Change among Eastern European Jews in the Late Nineteenth Century

This article draws on autobiographies and memoirs, polemical articles from the contemporary press, and bellestristic literature to illuminate the growth of a female reading public in nineteenth-century Eastern European Jewish society. The exclusion of women from religious study and the emphasis on women’s responsibility for managing family businesses which characterized traditional Jewish culture created conditions that permitted some women to receive a secular education. Reading canonic literature in European languages and non-canonic literature in Yiddish, some women became catalysts of socio-cultural change toward the modernization, Europeanization and secularization of Jewish society.