Short schooling fit for girls

Abstract

Over the course of the twentieth century Icelandic girls and women progressed from enjoying very limited formal schooling beyond compulsory education, far less than their male contemporaries, to clearly outdoing boys or men at every level of academic study, secondary as well as tertiary. The article traces this development stage by stage and endeavors to explain it in terms of a dialectic interplay between (a) girls being no less (eventually even more) interested in education; and (b) society (authorities, schools, parents) providing and advocating shorter and more practical study for girls than boys.

Discrimination, however, only kicked in at post-compulsory level. In Iceland, part of the strictly Lutheran Danish kingdom, compulsory education grew out of the substantial religious instruction considered essential for confirmation into the state church. Salvation was seen as an individual matter, making religious instruction equally important for both genders. The same applied to reading, which was made compulsory as a skill to be used in acquiring the religious knowledge, and eventually to writing and arithmetic which for practical reasons were annexed to the compulsory home schooling provided under the supervision of the parish minister. When primary schools (at first typically arranged as itinerant teachers) gradually supplemented and then replaced home schooling, gender discrimination in academic subjects was out of the question, making girls as well prepared as boys for further study.

Post-compulsory education in Iceland had been male only (with the exception of practical training in midwifery) until a school for girls was established in Reykjavík in 1875, offering an essentially secondary modern course of study. Similar schools were established in rural districts while a slowly increasing number of girls attended other secondary modern schools (including Scandinavian style “folk high schools” for rural students), the Reykjavík gymnasium (open to girls from 1904), a teacher training school (1908) and even the new University of Iceland (1911). Concurrent with this development, the 1930s and 40s saw an increasing emphasis on “home economy” schools for girls, offering a one year’s course of largely practical subjects, regarded as vocational training for the typical female “career” of domestic help, then housewife. Demand for this type of education peaked in 1950, then slumped abruptly as girls preferred the co-educational lower secondary education increasingly provided throughout the country. Other secondary education considered fit for girls included certified trades (such as hairdressing or dress making), nursing and midwifery, and pre-school and primary school teacher training. The upper secondary study for university entrance examination was considered more appropriate for boys. Yet even there the proportion of girls gradually rose, surpassing that of boys in 1978 and soon reaching 60%. Having reached that milestone, girls were, at least during the 1970s, encouraged to either find work (sometimes to provide for the family while the husband finished his study) or choose a practical vocational study, such as nursing or teacher training (now moved to the tertiary level) or even more practical options such as lab technician. Among those who embarked on a university study, women were less likely than men to study abroad and less likely to continue beyond undergraduate level. Only in 1998 did women surpass 50% of those earning graduate degrees at Icelandic universities and only since 2014 have more women than men been granted doctoral degrees. At long last, Icelandic girls no longer accepted the advice that their studies should be shorter, more practical, less academic.