In this project, I analyze seven twentieth-century novels of teaching in order to investigate how notions of home and school are constructed, connected, and perpetuated in popular teaching narratives. Images of teachers in much of this centurys fiction often rest on views of the school as home that are derived from stereotypes of gender, race, and nationalitystereotypes that can be both inaccurate and repressive. For this reason, I examine these texts in light of how they negotiate school space with domestic space (domestic both as personal or familial, and as public or national). I contend that many of these narratives offer little more than simplistic, nostalgic views of what home/school space can be, and even fewer question the very equation of school as home. In those narratives that do probe the school/home connection, the teacher-protagonists often fail to emerge as the sentimental heroes that the teachers of the more conventional novels prove to be. Nevertheless, I argue that the most promising depictions of teachers and their work are those that acknowledge and engage the rich complexities of home and its (sometimes problematic) relation to the classroom, for the very tensions and conflicts that problematize the schools classification as a domestic safe haven are the very tools that can facilitate growth, learning, and self-discovery.
The approach for my analysis draws from feminist and cultural studies, as well as educational history. The works I discuss include the following: The Blackboard Jungle; Good Morning, Miss Dove; To Sir, With Love; Spinster; The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; Up the Down Staircase; and Election.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-0417102-144640 |
| Date | 18 April 2002 |
| Creators | Watson, Margaret M. |
| Contributors | John Whittaker, Richard Moreland, Michelle Masse, Patrick McGee, Petra Munro |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-0417102-144640/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in the University Libraries in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. |
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