ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Mathematics Students of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Jeunes Filles de Sèvres: A Long Path towards Academic Careers

• In Event: Science and Education 2: Practice

English Abstract

The place of women in science has been a subject of much interest for historians of science, especially since the development of women and gender studies in the 1970s. In this literature, the glass ceiling that preempted women from accessing positions in academia remains an important theme. Against this background, historical studies have emphasised the importance for women to have access to scientific education. More recently, some works focused on organisations exclusively for women, such as educational institutions or professional associations showing how these could help women develop scientific activities.

The institution I discuss in this paper, the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Jeunes Filles de Sèvres (ENSJF), was at the intersection of these two aspects. Initially, the ENSJF was created in 1881 for the sole purpose of training women high school teachers. In 1936, however, officials added to its aims the training of its students to careers in research – an ambition it maintained until its disappearance in 1985. Yet this policy change raises the question: did this stated goal lead to women trained at the ENSJF to actually obtain positions in academia – and if so, how?

Building on archival sources and oral interviews and focusing on the women trained in mathematics at the ENSJF, I show that the effectiveness of this policy underwent a change of scale some two decades after the institutional reorganisation. Prior to that, only a handful of women trained in the 1940s can be examined as pioneers for the ENSJF mathematicians. From the mid-1950s through the late 1960s, however, academia became the major career opportunity for ENSJF students in mathematics. I argue that all these women took advantage of their studentship in the ENSJF, especially through the support of some professors. Nevertheless, this support could benefit to a larger number of ENSJF students owing to the 1960s political context, which favoured the creation of numerous positions in the universities.

Author

• Elisa Dalgalarrondo, SPHERE, Université Paris Cité