| Popis: |
As Ohio rural public schools’ administration transitioned from local control to county and state control, Amish families allied with each other and with non-Amish rural families to retain their influence in the schools their children attended, negotiating a mediated freedom to educate their children. When it became clear by the mid-twentieth century that school officials prioritized following state education policy and keeping state funding over allowing school patrons to run the local schools, Amish families started parochial schools. In these schools, Amish women gained both a professional space and cultural influence, as school classrooms became a feminized domain. Amish schools’ gendered organization resembled early twentieth-century public schools’ masculinized administration and feminized workforce. I contend that just as rural public schools carved out a space of mediated freedom in administering their schools, even with ever-growing county and state bureaucracy, Amish women have developed their own space of mediated freedom, within the confines of male school administration. |
