Gender and the Modern Research University: The Admission of Women to German Higher Education, 1865-1914 - Hardcover

by Patricia Mazón (Author)

In the 1890s, German feminists fighting for female higher education envied American women their small colleges. Yet by 1910, German women could study at any German university, a level of educational access not reached by American women until the 1960s. This book investigates this development as well as the cultural significance of the tremendous debate generated by aspiring female students.

Central to Mazón's analysis is the concept of academic citizenship, a complex discourse permeating German student life. Shaped by this ideal, the student years were a crucial stage in the formation of masculine identity in the educated middle class, and a female student was unthinkable. Only by emphasizing the need for female gynecologists and teachers did the women's movement carve out a niche for academic women.

Because the nineteenth-century German university was the model for the modern research university, the controversy resonates with contemporary American debates surrounding multiculturalism and higher education.

Front Jacket

In the 1890s, German feminists fighting for female higher education envied American women their small colleges. Yet by 1910, German women could study at any German university, a level of educational access not reached by American women until the 1960s. This book investigates this development as well as the cultural significance of the tremendous debate generated by aspiring female students.
Central to Mazon's analysis is the concept of academic citizenship, a complex discourse permeating German student life. Shaped by this ideal, the student years were a crucial stage in the formation of masculine identity in the educated middle class, and a female student was unthinkable. Only by emphasizing the need for female gynecologists and teachers did the women's movement carve out a niche for academic women.
Because the nineteenth-century German university was the model for the modern research university, the controversy resonates with contemporary American debates surrounding multiculturalism and higher education.

Back Jacket

This book is important for modern German history and it is also filled with acute observations for all who are interested in educational opportunity and social change.--Lora Wildenthal, Rice University
"This is a valuable study, informative and well researched."--American Historical Review

Author Biography

Patricia Mazón is Assistant Professor of History at the State University of New York at Buffalo.