The Intersection of Gender, Discipline, and the American One Room School House

Abstract

The one-room schoolhouse of America is situated at the intersection of modern and historic education. What marked a mass movement of centralized education, involved government, and the conception of childhood also symbolized a playground of forced socialization and corporal punishment. The one-room schoolhouse and the educational concepts taught within them are the focus of this research which aims to comprehend the disciplinary disparities between male and female pupils in the United States from 1840 to 1910. This paper will moreover illuminate gender roles within education more broadly with an emphasis applied to the perceived morality of the student and how that transpires into educational instruction and discipline. The history of one-room schoolhouses within the United States proves to be extensive. Consequently, a plethora of scholarly work exists on the disciplinary tactics used in the schoolhouse and the intersection of gender and education in the United States. Primary sources such as educational handbooks made for both teachers and pupils, educational philosophy writings created by the time’s most outstanding teachers and educational leaders, diaries, and personal narratives from the eras pupils are utilized in this paper to illuminate the controversial ways of the rod, life in the one-room schoolhouse, and the understood morality of the children inside them. Using these sources, the paper will argue that the way male and female students in one-room schoolhouses and common schools from the Antebellum Period to the turn of the twentieth century were disciplined, enforces, and emphasizes societally generated gender roles of the time. The impact of these ideologies lingers in our current educational system. Educators and parents socialize their children with the conscious implantation of gender expectations. When children act against these natural laws they are scrutinized. The legacy of discipline and how it teaches our children about their place in our society is ongoing.