'Oh no, nothing, we didn't learn anything': Sex education and the preparation of girls for motherhood, c.1930-1970

History of Education

Volumn 37, Issue 5, 2008, Pages 661-677

  Davis, Angela ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Gender; Health; Motherhood; Oral history; Oxfordshire; Sex education

Indexed keywords

EID: 51849099584     PISSN: 0046760X     EISSN: 14645130     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00467600701727730     Document Type: Article

References (116)

1. Denise Riley, War in the Nursery: Theories of Child and Mother (London: Virago, 1983), 171.
2. The Agricultural Economic Research Institute Oxford, Country Planning: A Study of Rural Problems (London: Oxford University Press, 1944).
3. Kate Fisher, 'An Oral History of Birth Control Practice c. 1925-50: A Study of Oxford and South Wales' (DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 1997), 40.
4. Katherine Field, 'Children of the Nation?: A Study of the Health and Well-being of Oxfordshire Children, 1891-1939' (DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 2001), 103.
5. Penny Summerfield, Reconstructing Women's Wartime Lives (Manchester University Press, 1998), 1-42.
6. Field, 'Children of the Nation', 104-5.
7. The recordings and transcripts of the interviews are held by the author.
8. Alistair Thomson, Anzac Memories: Living with the legend (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
9. Kate Fisher provides one such defence in the introduction to her DPhil thesis, which includes a comprehensive review of the literature and appraisal of critical debates within the field. Fisher, 'Oral History of Birth Control Practice', 31-80.
10. Alessandro Portelli, The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 50.
11. Indeed Dennis Dean has noted that in the postwar period the Ministry of Education strongly encouraged schools to 'create within their walls an image of the idealized home'. Dennis Dean. 'Education for Moral Improvement, Domesticity and Social Cohesion: The Labour Government, 1945-1951', in Equality and Inequality in Education Policy, ed. Liz Dawtrey, Janet Holland and Merril Hammer, with Sue Sheldon (Clevedon: Multilingual Matters in association with the Open University, 1995), 18-30, 24.
12. Carol Boyd, 'Mothers and Daughters: A Discussion of Theory and Research', Journal of Marriage and the Family 51, no. 2 (1989): 291-301, 291.
13. D. W. Winnicott, Babies and their Mothers (London: Free Association Press, 1988), 61.
14. Clare Rayner, Mothers and Midwives (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1962), 14.
15. This work was based on a study of 46 nursing mothers observed at lying-in wards in hospital. Merell P. Middlemore, The Nursing Couple (London: Cassell, 1941), 118.
16. Sigmund Freud, 'Femininity', in Standard Edition, vol. XXII, 128.
17. Riley, War in the Nursery, 7.
18. Dana Breen, Talking with Mothers (London: Jill Norman, 1981), 25.
19. Sharon, interviewed by author, 30 July 2004.
20. Tina, interviewed by author, 26 June 2004.
21. Polly, interviewed by author, 14 June 2004.
22. John Bowlby, Attachment and Loss: Volume I, Attachment (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971), 183.
23. Rachel, interviewed by author, 22 July 2005.
24. Siobhan, interviewed by author, 7 June 2004.
25. Tania, interviewed by author, 16 June 2004.
26. Ivy, interviewed by author, 30 July 2004.
27. Olive, interviewed by author, 21 January 2005.
28. Louisa, interviewed by author, 1 February 2005.
29. Monika, interviewed by author, 7 January 2005.
30. Mabel, interviewed by author, 6 May 2005.
31. Michael Young and Peter Willmott, Family and Kinship in East London (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957), 159.
32. Kathleen Ollerenshaw, Education for Girls (London: Faber & Faber, 1961), xiv.
33. Ruth Anderson Oakley, Challenge to Heritage (London: Saint Catherine Press, 1955), 97.
34. Oakley, Challenge to Heritage, 97.
35. Theresa, interviewed by author, 6 September 2005.
36. Siobhan, interviewed by author, 7 June 2004.
37. Ivy, interviewed by author, 30 July 2004.
38. Mabel, interviewed by author, 6 May 2005.
39. Esther, interviewed by author, 6 May 2005.
40. Fiona, interviewed by author 27 July 2004.
41. Florence, interviewed by author, 13 October 2004.
42. Louisa, interviewed by author, 1 February 2005.
43. Grace, interviewed by author, 11 January 2005.
44. Violet, interviewed by author 26 February 2006.
45. Elizabeth Roberts Archive, Centre for North-West Regional Studies, Mrs B. 2. B. 26.
46. C644 Oral History of Birth Control, Sound Archive, British Library.
47. Ivy, interviewed by author, 30 July 2004.
48. Peggy, interviewed by author, 5 July 2005.
49. Fiona, interviewed by author 27 July 2004.
50. Rebecca, interviewed by author 29 April 2005.
51. Georgie, interviewed by author, 1 November 2004.
52. Olive, interviewed by author 21 January 2005.
53. Jane Pilcher, 'School Sex Education in England 1870-2000', Sex Education 5, no. 2 (2005): 157-74, 154.
54. Rachel Thomson, 'Moral Rhetoric and Public Pragmatism: The Recent Politics of Sex Education', Feminist Review 48 (1994): 40-60, 43.
55. The government were responding to proposals made within the Report of the Royal Commission on Venereal Disease (1916), Pilcher, 'School Sex Education', 155.
56. Pilcher, 'School Sex Education', 155.
57. Board of Education, The Health of the Schoolchild (London: HMSO, 1930), 42-4.
58. Ellen Ross and Rayna Rapp, 'Sex and Society: A Research Note from Social History and Anthropology', Comparative Studies in Society and History 23, no. 1 (1981): 51-72, 62.
59. Lesley Hall, 'Birds, Bees and General Embarrassment: Sex Education in Britain from Social Purity to Section 28', In Public or Private Education?: Lessons from History, ed. Richard Aldrich (London: RoutledgeFalmer 2004), 98-115.
60. Board of Education, Sex Education in Schools and Youth Organisations (London: HMSO, 1943), 8.
61. Jane Pilcher, 'Sex in Health Education: Official Guidance for Schools in England, 1928-1977', Journal of Historical Sociology 17, no. 3 (2004): 185-208, 191.
62. Pilcher, 'Sex in Health Education', 193.
63. Dean, 'Education for Moral Improvement', 22.
64. Pilcher, 'School Sex Education', 162.
65. Dean, 'Education for Moral Improvement', 27.
66. Ministry of Education, Health Education (London: HMSO, 1956), 44.
67. Ibid., 51-3.
68. AnnMarie Wolpe, 'Sex in Schools: Back to the Future', Feminist Review 27 (1987): 37-47, 40.
69. Christine Farrell, My Mother Said... The Way Young People Learn About Sex and Birth Control (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), 124.
70. Ministry of Education, 15 to 18 (London: HMSO, 1959).
71. Ministry of Education, Half our Future (London: HMSO, 1963).
72. Department of Education and Science, A Handbook of Health Education (London: HMSO, 1968), 69.
73. Department of Education and Science, Handbook of Health Education, 71.
74. The Oral History of Contraception confirmed this was a widespread experience. C644 Oral History of Birth Control.
75. Rachel, interviewed by author 22 July 2005.
76. June, interviewed by author, 11 February 2005.
77. Rebecca, interviewed by author 29 April 2005.
78. Elizabeth Roberts Archive, Mrs C. 7. L., 31.
79. Megan, interviewed by author, 8 January 2006.
80. Kate Fisher, '"She was quite satisfied with the arrangements I made": Gender and Birth Control in Britain 1920-1950', Past and Present 169, no. 1 (2000): 161-93, 189.
81. Jean Grime, 'The Maternity Patient in Hospital: An Experiment in Health Education', Nursing Times 61 (1965), 249-50, 249.
82. P. S Cook,. 'Antenatal Education for Parenthood, as an Aspect of Preventive Psychiatry: Some Suggestions for Programme Content and Objective', Medical Journal of Australia 13, no. 1 (1970): 676-81, 677.
83. Ben M. Peckham, 'Optimal Maternal Care', Obstetrics and Gynaecology 33, no. 6 (1969): 862-8, 864.
84. Cook, 'Antenatal Education for Parenthood', 676.
85. Frederick Warren Goodrich, Maternity: A Guide to Prospective Motherhood (London: Staples Press, 1960), 17-18.
86. Lindsay, interviewed by author 23 February 2005.
87. Bodleian Library, City of Oxford Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health, 1961, 98.
88. Oxford Annual Report of the MOH, 1961, 122.
89. Ibid., 63.
90. Ann Oakley, Women Confined: Towards a Sociology of Childbirth (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1980), 37.
91. Bethany, interviewed by author, 30 June 2004.
92. Sharon, interviewed by author, 30 July 2004.
93. Nicola, interviewed by author, 6 April 2005.
94. Joanna, interviewed by author 22 March 2005.
95. Sheila Kitzinger, The Politics of Birth (London: Elsevier, 2005), 46.
96. Sheila Kitzinger in conversation with the author.
97. Monika, interviewed by author, 7 January 2005.
98. Claire, interviewed by author, 13 June 2005.
99. Emily, interviewed by author, 9 February 2005.
100. Grace, interviewed by author, 11 January 2005.
101. Jessie Parfit, The Health of a City: Oxford 1770-1974 (Oxford: Amate Press, 1987), 93-4.
102. Pamela M. Graves, Labour Women: Women in British Working-Class Politics 1918-1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 97-8.
103. Parfit, Health of a City, 94.
104. Madge, interviewed by author 27 January 2006.
105. Riley, War in the Nursery, 159.
106. Glenda, interviewed by author 24 January 2006.
107. Molly, interviewed by author, 11 February 2004.
108. Jackie, interviewed by author, 31 January 2006.
109. Ivy, interviewed by author, 30 July 2004.
110. Claire, interviewed by author, 13 June 2005.
111. Florence, interviewed by author, 13 October 2004.
112. For example Lara Marks, 'They're Magicians': Midwives, Doctors and Hospitals: Women's Experiences of Childbirth in East London and Woolwich in the Interwar Years', Oral History 23, no. 1 (1995): 46-53;
113. Elizabeth Roberts, A Woman's Place: An Oral History of Working-class Women, 1890-1940 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984);
114. Simon Szreter, Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain, 1860-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996);
115. Hera Cook, The Long Sexual Revolution: English Women, Sex and Contraception, 1800-1975 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
116. Marks, 'They're Magicians', 51.