The collection's focus is on girls' secondary education, and hence the gendered cultural expectations of the middle classes and upper classes, will provide the dominant narrative, given the relatively recent democratization of European educational systems.

This long-awaited synthesis approaches the past three centuries with an eye to highlighting the importance of significant schools, as well as important women educators in the emergence of secondary education for girls. At the same time, each contributor pays careful attention to the specific political, cultural, and socio-economic factors that shaped the emergence of a secondary system open to women. A chronological framework highlights the most important moments of change and attention to how countries exported girls' education to the colonies, as well as the transnational discussion on the subject, makes this volume an exciting addition to scholarship on women's history and the history of education.