‘I Was Never Very Clever, but I Always Survived!’: Educational Experiences of Women in Britain’s Coalfield Communities, 1944–1990

Abstract

This chapter examines the educational experiences of 100 women from ex-coalfield communities across Britain, using life-history interviews undertaken during the AHRC-funded project Women in the miners’ strike 1984–1985: Charting changing gender relations in working-class communities in post-war Britain. Participants (born between 1934 and 1974) testimonies encompassed both negative and positive memories of schooling, with diverse stories being told. Certain patterns that could, however, be discerned. Almost all left school at the earliest possible moment, often without qualifications, though some returned to education as mature students. Most had little sense that they were expected to be anything more than wives and mothers, and for many, school worked to reproduce both class position and gender roles. This chapter argues that the women’s past experiences of education were often deeply socially conservative force but, at the same time, provided at least some participants with the tools through which they could empower themselves. This accounts for the ambivalence with which schooling was recalled by our interviewees.