Sites of Education Associated with Women’s Writing

The phrase “sites of education” can be construed variously across studies of early modern women’s writing, and sites include the Inns of Court, boarding schools, domestic settings, universities, playhouses, and material sites such as samplers and exercise books. While early modern women’s writing is often shown to be influenced by such sites of education, what the texts often show is women questioning the lack of dedicated space afforded their education outside of the home. While writing concerned with formal sites of learning brings under scrutiny the nature of institutional spaces occupied by men, it is the comparative informality of women’s learning briefly touched upon in their writing that reveals underlying perceptions about their education and where it took place, even though for many learning was a lifelong practice. The Christ’s Hospital Girls’ School, for example, boasts of being the oldest school for girls in England, dating admissions from December 9, 1554. However, as women’s written evidence frequently emphasizes, their sites of education were miscellaneous. Sites and scenarios recounted by early modern women trace education of women of different status, describing the institution and the home, instructional and self-governed learning. They include topics such as etiquette, censorship, fosterage, different learning styles, and women’s struggle for equal opportunity in education. Therefore, approaching the subject broadly, we find a richer picture of education than looking simply at institutions. This entry considers what counts as education for whom and under what circumstances by considering the locations of such events. It traces the relationships between sites of education and the production of writing by women. It analyzes the way that women interacted with and perceived various sites of education in the context of women’s accessibility to such sites by addressing the literary and material works they left behind.