Based on a qualitative, comparative, multiple case study of the contributions and status of 21st century women's colleges and universities, this article analyzes the topic of women's access to postsecondary education in ten nations. Despite decreasing numbers of women-only institutions in some regions (e.g., North America), the sector is growing…

This dissertation is a qualitative study of early 21st century American female college students' experiences of their gender, sexuality, and racial identities, and of institutional politics as their single-sex college transitioned to co-education. It is an ethnography that utilizes feminist theorizing to understand tensions between feminists…

Considers relationship between women's colleges and women's movement. Notes that, although private legal scholars did not perceive women's colleges within reach of proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), popular assumption was that, if passed, ERA would have eliminated women's colleges. Adds that women's colleges were not major players in…

No matter what social goals or federal laws exist, it will be a long time before the informal social environment in America's male-dominated colleges and universities will serve women students as well as men, suggests the president of Smith College. Until then "for women only" institutions are needed. (Author/LBH)

Examined midlife educational, career, and family outcomes of women who attended women's colleges in the 1960s, one with a coed learning environment (CLE) and one with a single-sex environment (SLE). Overall, graduates of both colleges were very accomplished 30 years later. However, those who had experienced a CLE reported more sexism and active…

Mary Lyon was the founder of Mount Holyoke College and a pioneer in science education. She was an early proponent of the laboratory method of teaching, disseminating it throughout nineteenth-century schools. Lyon established a distinguished chemistry faculty and founded an excellent department which has trained many women chemists. (SM)

The role of the women's rights press in reporting on and advancing coeducation in the United States is considered. The women's rights press was linked to the women's rights movement and articulated the goal that women should enjoy full participation in all aspects of U.S. life, including higher education. This analysis is based on 12 of the most…

The origin and development of two women's colleges, Mount Holyoke of Massachusetts and Meredith College of North Carolina, are compared, illustrating some of the early chapters of American higher education, when religious purposes for schools were common, but when schools for women were not. The social, historical, and religious contexts of the…

The reflection of women's image in major programs of the progressive education movement--vocational education, the core curriculum, and women's colleges--is discussed. Reasons for the parallel between image and progressive education are addressed. (LBH)

Lydia Shattuck was responsible for the excellence in science instruction at Mount Holyoke Seminary. Shattuck graduated in 1851 and remained there as a faculty member, specializing in chemistry and botany. One of the first women to join scientific societies, she helped enlarge the sphere of women engaged in scientific research. (SM)

Princeton's women students have adapted to a world of highly competitive males but a need has been found to provide services to help them in an atmosphere and society where male values predominate. (Author/LBH)

The ideology of higher education for women at Wellesley College in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is discussed in the context of feminism and the women's suffrage movement. "Symmetrical womanhood," a concept emphasizing balance of traditional roles and intellectual and community involvement, was a goal of Wellesley faculty of…

Nannerl Overhouser Keohane, one of a new breed of women presidents of women's colleges, is strongly committed to feminist scholarship and is also working to prepare Wellesley's graduates for the technology of the future. The role of minority students at Wellesley is discussed. (MLW)

Reviews the European response to U.S. women's colleges. Contends that most international visitors believed that the United States was the world leader in women's rights in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Concludes that women's colleges' influence as models was limited severly by generally negative perceptions of all U. S. colleges. (CFR)

Three recent books ("In the Company of Women,""Alma Mater," and "Women in College") focus on very different but interrelated topics: the general history of women in higher education in America, the history of women's colleges, and the shaping of women's identities through higher education. (MSE)