The History of School Teachers and Administrators

Abstract

This chapter is an overarching historical narrative of the development of the occupations of teaching and school administration, focusing on the history of educators who have worked as elementary and secondary public school teachers and local school administrators. The emphasis is on the historical development of Anglo and Anglo American education, with notations of patterns of change in a more global context. The chapter discusses the nature of research on the history of educators, and then introduces three themes that mark the history of teachers and school administrators: the creation of state systems of education, the troubled history of professionalization of education, and the historical relationship of public school educators to the state.