Session Information
Contribution
The new Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, published in 2004 and updated each year with fresh biographies, includes many biographies of educationalists. Each one is based on 'standard factual components' which the biographer should research and discover before putting together their 'life'. Biographers are given a word length which varies according to how the editors perceive the importance of their subject, although this can be negotiated. All articles follow a chronological structure and end with a list of sources used which, hopefully, will include any visual representations of the subject. Authors also have to demonstrate the material they used in order of importance up to twelve sources and list the subject's archival deposits and any sound and film archives on which they appear, excluding commercial recordings. Interestingly, the subject's wealth at death also has to be listed. This, therefore, is the official way of telling life stories in the most prestigious reference biographical series we have in Britain. In education, as in other fields, these biographies are extremely useful for students and researchers and often the first port of call when investigating a new topic or person. They reliably give basic information about a person's origins and family, occupation, works and achievements, together with their dates and personal history. Their lists of sources enable scholars to investigate further if they wish. This tightly constructed way of telling life stories, therefore, is helpful and seemingly as objective as possible, although usage reveals the predilections of the authors in the stories they tell.This paper will investigate the methodological challenges to writing biographies for the ODNB from the experience of the author. Of the five she has written, one biography in particular, that of Dame Mary Green, headteacher of Kidbrooke School 1954-73, will be used to look at the methods and evidence employed in writing this life history according to the ODNB format. The mapping of Mary Green's life in this way will be explored to open up questions on what we wish to discover as educational historians in using life histories/stories and what different biographical methods can be utilised to do this. The multiple aspects of education which can be perceived in greater depth through life histories and the complexities of seeing education through situated lives will be matters arising from this, as will the issue of what types of evidence can be used and how.Historical. Use of ODNB remit and biographies written by proposer and sources used for those. The way of writing educational biographies for the ODNB provides very useful information for historians and other reserachers in education, but there are other approaches to telling life histories which can lead to different interpretations.Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) Remit for authors andRuth Watts Forthcoming 'Dame Mary Green' 'Cooper, Alice Jane (1846-1917)', ODNB, Oxford University Press, 2004: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/51748 'Creak, Edith Elizabeth Maria (1855-1919)', ODNB, Oxford University Press, 2004: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/51760 'Nimmo, Margaret (1850-1938)', ODNB, Oxford University Press, 2004: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/51755 'Sharpe, Matilda (1830-1916)', ODNB, Oxford University Press, 2004: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/51750 Sandra Harding, Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women's Lives, Milton Keynes, Open University Press, 1991Jane Martin and Joyce Goodman, Women and Education 1800-1980, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004 Jane Martin, 'Reflections on writing a biographical account of a woman educator activist', History of Education, March 30/2 pp.177-90 Kathleen Weiler, 'Reflections on writing a history of women teachers' in Kathleen Weiler and Sue Middleton (eds.), Telling Women Lives: Narrative Inquiries in the History of Women's Education, Buckingham, Open University Press, 1999, pp. 44-7
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