Ruby Bridges
At the tender age of six, Ruby Bridges advanced the cause of civil rights in November 1960 when she became the first African American student to integrate an elementary school in the South.
Category Archives: Education
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Sylvia Constance Ashton-Warner
Ashton-Warner’s fiction was autobiographical and her autobiographies often fictional. Her educational theory was expressed in the form of novels (Spinster, Bell call) or as autobiography (Teacher, Spearpoint: ‘teacher’ in America).
Corita Kent
During her lifetime, and especially in the twenty years following her death, Kent’s work never quite worked its way into the mainstream. Being a female artist and a nun, she did not fit into the detached, jaded aesthetic narrative of Pop.
Hēni Te Kiri Karamū
Te Arawa woman of mana, teacher, warrior, interpreter
Fatima al-Fihri
Also known as Umm al-Banayn, Fatima bint Muhammad Al-Fihriyya is credited with founding the al-Qarawiyyin mosque in 859 AD in Fez, Morocco. The mosque later developed a teaching institution, which became the University of al-Qarawiyyin in 1963.
Salomé Ureña
Dominican poet Salomé Ureña was an early advocate for women’s higher education in the Dominican Republic.
Ada Wells
In 1892 Ada Wells, with Professor Alexander Bickerton, founded the Canterbury Women’s Institute, of which she was president for many years. This was one of many offices she was to hold. In 1896 she became the first national secretary of the National Council of Women of New Zealand, and in 1898 she helped to spearhead the campaign for the formation of the Canterbury Children’s Aid Society. In 1899 she became one of the first two women to be elected to the Ashburton and North Canterbury United Charitable Aid Board, serving as a member until 1906 in spite of the antagonism of male members of the board to her presence. In addition to this she was associated with the Prison-gate Mission, an organisation engaged in the rehabilitation of prisoners. She was a member of the National Peace Council of New Zealand and worked with groups providing aid to conscientious objectors during the First World War.
Winifred Lily Boys-Smith
Unlike many conservative supporters of sex-differentiated education, Boys-Smith saw the study of home science at university level as ‘a great force in the education of women’ – specifically, the higher education of women. She believed that because of changing social patterns domestic skills had increasingly come to be seen as menial. The educational programme set up by her for the School of Home Science sought to lift the status of the domestic arts by providing a strong scientific education, augmented with technical instruction. An emphasis on science, particularly chemistry, also served to silence those critics who believed that the School of Home Science belonged in a technical institute, not a university.
Ada Mary a’Beckett
Alongside her employment, a’Beckett played an active role in the life of her community, fitting her ‘philanthropic activities … [into] the leisure moments of a busy professional life (Argus, 12 February 1927), fulfilling the adage that it was ‘the busiest women who can always find time to do a little more’ (Argus, 18 February 1927). To Melbourne journalist, ‘Vesta’ she was an example of the contribution which educated women could make to philanthropic work (Argus, 23 January 1935). She was a founder of the Victorian Women Graduates Association, took leadership roles in both the Janet Clarke Hall Committee and the Lyceum Club, and was also a member of the National Council of Women and the Victoria League. However, her most important contribution was through the Free Kindergarten Union, of which she was the foundation vice-president, president from 1919-39 and life president from then until her death. She was one of the founders, and later a lecturer at the Kindergarten Teaching College and founder of the Australian Association for Pre-School Child Development which was responsible for the establishment of the Lady Gowrie model centres across Australia. Kindergartens, she believed, had the potential to ‘eradicate the weaknesses of human nature and strengthen the good points’ and might in time ‘do away altogether with gaols and asylums’ (Argus, 19 August 1944).
Mercedes Laura Aguiar
Mercedes Laura Aguiar was a writer, teacher and feminist from the Dominican Republic. As a journalist and poet, she wrote works that promoted gender equality and Dominican sovereignty, in opposition to the US occupation. She fought for women’s right to vote, women’s right to education, and employment protections for women and children.