Being a female teacher: biographical stories about the meanings of the teaching profession

Abstract

History shows that women have fought serious battles to achieve the recognition of their right to education and, consecutively, to acquire a profession. On the other hand, sociology and the history of professions show how certain labor fields have been feminized; one of them is the teaching profession, in which women teachers have had a prominent presence. In this context, the objective of this paper is to recover the various meanings of being a teacher, expressed in the testimonies of female teachers in charge of training girls and boys and, therefore, of forging part of the history of education. As teachers, they have stood out as forgers of new generations of women, historically relegated in the professional field. We rescue testimonies of women teachers about their training and incursion into the field of teaching, and, as a result, we infer the meanings of being teachers, during the second half of the twentieth century, in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, within the framework of their life stories. The research project that originates it is based on oral history as a theoretical-methodological support based on life stories. We conclude that the entry of women into formal education—from elementary school to teacher training college, in this case—was never an easy undertaking; nor was accessing a higher position as principals, supervisors or sector heads. Even so, women teachers are assumed as relevant actors to promote the professional development of other women. Their biographical journeys reveal their teaching vocation, their love for the formation of children, their work achievements and their contribution to the teaching culture, although their names and history go practically unnoticed.