Rogers, Rebecca 1959- (Rebecca Elizabeth Rogers)

views updated

Rogers, Rebecca 1959- (Rebecca Elizabeth Rogers)

PERSONAL:

Born June 8, 1959, in Chicago, IL; daughter of Thomas Hunton and Jacqueline Marguerite Rogers; married Olivier Vincent Debarre; children: Alice Susan, Thomas Jean. Education: Harvard University, A.B., 1981; L'École des Hautes Études, Paris, Ph.D., 1987.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Faculté des Sciences Humaines et Sociales, Sorbonne, UMR 8070, Centre de recherche sur les liens sociaux, Université Paris 5, René Descartes, 45, rue des Saints-Pères, 75270 Paris, Cedex 06, France.

CAREER:

University of Iowa, Iowa City, assistant professor of history, 1989-94, associate professor, 1994; Université Marc Bloch, Strasbourg, France, maître de conférences, 1994-2006; Université Paris, René Descartes, Paris, France, professor of the history of education, 2006—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Book Prize, British History of Education Society, for From the Salon to the Schoolroom: Educating Bourgeois Girls in Nineteenth-Century France, 2007.

WRITINGS:

Les Demoiselles de la Légion d'Honneur: Les Maisons d'Éducation de la Légion d'Honneur au XIXe Siècle, Plon (Paris, France), 1992.

La Mixité dans l'Éducation: Enjeux Passés et Présents, ENS Éditions (Lyon, France), 2004.

From the Salon to the Schoolroom: Educating Bourgeois Girls in Nineteenth-Century France, Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS:

Writer and educator Rebecca Rogers was born June 8, 1959, in Chicago, Illinois. She graduated from Harvard University in 1981, then completed her education in Paris, earning her doctorate from L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes in 1987. She served on the faculty of the University of Iowa in Iowa City until 1994, at which point she accepted a position in France as a maître de conférences at the Université Marc Bloch in Strasbourg. In 2006 she became a professor of the history of education at the Université Paris, René Descartes. In addition, Rogers has written several books, both in French and English, including From the Salon to the Schoolroom: Educating Bourgeois Girls in Nineteenth-Century France, for which she was awarded the Book Prize of the British History of Education Society in 2007.

In From the Salon to the Schoolroom, Rogers addresses the issue of exactly how to define the nature of education that was considered appropriate for girls of a certain class during the nineteenth century, at which time schools remained segregated by sex, as subjects that were considered appropriate and necessary for boys were often considered inappropriate or too mentally taxing for girls. During this period, boys achieved secondary-school level with the addition of Latin to their curriculum, but girls had no such defining addition. It is Rogers's assertion that the social class is the real determining factor that indicates when a school for girls was considered a secondary education. In the absence of a fundamental difference in curriculum, she finds it more appropriate to look at the rank of the girls in question. Girls of lower social classes rarely if ever continued their education, as it was not necessary given their place in society and the tasks the future held for them. However, girls of the bourgeoisie were more likely to move in genteel circles where continued education was an asset. While several critics and other historians disagree with Rogers's claim, finding it overly simplistic, Rogers herself points out that they are ignoring the existence of schools for the secondary education of girls that existed during the early parts of the nineteenth century in favor of focusing on the reforms of the latter part of the century that mandated secondary education for females. Pierre Simoni, writing for the Canadian Journal of History, declared that "Rogers breaks new ground. She includes numerous examples from British and American history to enrich her study of girls' secondary education in French. This book will be of interest to specialists of education in North America." Linda L. Clark, in a contribution for the Journal of Social History, concluded that "Rogers's impressive and well-written study recovers a hitherto neglected period in French girls' education. Enhanced with material from the American and English settings, the book offers much to scholars and students of comparative education and comparative women's history."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, October 1, 2006, Sharif Gemie, review of From the Salon to the Schoolroom: Educating Bourgeois Girls in Nineteenth-Century France, p. 1257.

Canadian Journal of History, December 22, 2006, Pierre Simoni, review of From the Salon to the Schoolroom, p. 563.

Choice, June 1, 2006, D.A. Harvey, review of From the Salon to the Schoolroom, p. 1894.

English Historical Review, February 1, 2002, "Les Espaces de l'Historien: Etudes d'Historiographie," p. 241.

Journal of Modern History, March 1, 2007, Linda L. Clark, review of La Mixité dans l'Éducation: Enjeux Passés et Présents, p. 175.

Journal of Social History, March 22, 2007, Linda L. Clark, review of From the Salon to the Schoolroom, p. 784.

Women's History Review, November 1, 2007, Karen Offen, review of From the Salon to the Schoolroom, p. 800.