Linda Kerber argued in the mid-1980s that after the American Revolution (1775–1783), an ideology of “republican motherhood” resulted in a surge of educational opportunities for women in the United States. Kerber maintained that the leaders of the new nation wanted women to be educated in order to raise politically virtuous sons. A virtuous citizenry was considered essential to the success of the country’s republican form of government; virtue was to be instilled not only by churches and schools, but by families, where the mother’s role was crucial. Thus, according to Kerber, motherhood became pivotal to the fate of the republic, providing justification for an unprecedented attention to female education.
Introduction of the “republican motherhood” thesis dramatically changed historiography. Prior to Kerber’s work, educational historians barely mentioned women and girls; Thomas Woody’s 1929 work is the notable exception. Examining newspaper advertisements for academies, Woody found that educational opportunities increased for both girls and boys around 1750. Pointing to “An Essay on Woman” (1753) as reflecting a shift in view, Woody also claimed that practical education for females had many advocates before the Revolution. Woody’s evidence challenges the notion that the Revolution changed attitudes regarding female education, although it may have accelerated earlier trends. Historians’ reliance on Kerber’s “republican motherhood” thesis may have obscured the presence of these trends, making it difficult to determine to what extent the Revolution really changed women’s lives.


The passage suggests that, with regard to the history of women’s education in the United States, Kerber’s work differs from Woody’s primarily concerning which of the following?


The extent to which women were interested in pursuing educational opportunities in the eighteenth century

The extent of the support for educational opportunities for girls prior to the American Revolution

The extent of public resistance to educational opportunities for women after the American Revolution

Whether attitudes toward women’s educational opportunities changed during the eighteenth century

Whether women needed to be educated in order to contribute to the success of a republican form of government

考题讲解

题目分析:

文章推断题: 在美国的女性教育史上,LK的研究和TW的研究在哪一方面不一样?

LK认为:revolution之后,女性受教育的诉求才增加,因为政府意识到女性在培养有政治觉悟的好公民方面的重要性。

TW认为:revolution之前就有许多人支持女性受教育,revolution只不过是加快了这个趋势。


选项分析:

A选项:十八世纪,女性对接受教育这件事有多大兴趣:两个人都认为女性是对接受教育有很大需求的。

B选项:正确。revolution之前,人们对女性受教育有多大的支持:LK认为revolution之前是没有的,而TW认为revolution之前就有的。

C选项:revolution之后,公众对女性受教育有多大反对:原文没提。两个人都讨论的是支持的事。

D选项:
十八世纪,对女性受教育这件事的态度变没变:两个人都认为revolution改变了态度,但不同意的是到底改变了多少。LK认为是从无到有;TW认为只是在有的基础上助攻了一波。文章最后一句:到底revolution多大程度上改变了女性的生活。

E选项:
女性是否需要受教育,为了给新政度做贡献:这个是LK讨论的内容,与两人的分歧无关。

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