ERIC Number: EJ814604
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2003-Apr
Pages: 13
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0022-0620
EISSN: N/A
Postwar Headteachers' Perspectives of "Good" Teachers
Whitehead, Kay
Journal of Educational Administration and History, v35 n1 p23-35 Apr 2003
In this article, the author focuses in what counted as a "good" teacher on the cusp of a significant change in the profile of the teaching workforce from single to married women. As Jackie Blount notes, single women had dominated state school systems numerically for the century preceding the Second World War but by the late 1940s the percentage of women teachers who were married was increasing rapidly. Given this context, how did the English applicants represent themselves as suitable teachers for employment in South Australia? And how did English headteachers portray these teachers to potential employers? The author outlines the negotiations undertaken by the South Australian Education Department to recruit teachers from the UK before explicating the 20 successful applications and 48 testimonials that were submitted in support of the applicants. Finally, the article considers the South Australian Education Department's administrative response to its 20 new employees. The main argument is that discourses of professionalism dominated both teachers' and headteachers' perspectives of good teachers, but that those discourses were applied differentially by both groups and in opposition to pejorative discourses of spinsterhood. (Contains 1 table.)
Descriptors: Administrator Attitudes, Teacher Effectiveness, Teacher Characteristics, Marital Status, Women Faculty, Teacher Shortage, War, World History, Educational History, Foreign Countries
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia; United Kingdom
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A