Women in the History of Language Learning and Teaching: Hidden Pioneers of Practice from Europe and Beyond 1400-2000

This volume addresses the historical neglect of women’s contributions to language learning and teaching. While the historiography of language education has often focused on male-dominated frameworks, overlooking the pivotal roles women have played, the case studies in this book highlight female pioneers in language education across various cultural and linguistic traditions, from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. Covering a wide range of languages – including Greek, Arabic, French, and English – and exploring the gendered dimensions of language education, where social class and gender influence both the languages taught and the methods employed, the book reveals women’s agency in shaping language education – and the systematic undervaluing of their contributions. In doing so, it calls for a broader, more inclusive historiography that recognises women’s significant impact on the field, often in non-institutional and domestic contexts, and a reconsideration of the history of language education to acknowledge the contributions of women globally.

Sabine Doff has been Full Professor of English Language Education at the Department of Language and Literary Studies, University of Bremen, Germany since 2009. Her main interests cover the historiography of language education in and beyond Europe, curriculum studies, culture and cultural learning in the language classroom, inclusive language education and content and language integrated learning.

Giovanni Iamartino is a Full Professor of English at the University of Milan. His research interests are mainly focused on the history of lexicography, translation and history, and Anglo-Italian linguistic and cultural relations. Iamartino’s recent work on the history of language learning and teaching includes essays on R. John Andree’s 1725 Vocabulary in six languages, and on Giuseppe Baretti and Moses Santagnello as master of languages and compilers of learning and teaching materials in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain. Forthcoming is his Oxford Bibliography on Anglo-Italian cultural relations: The Italian influence.

Rachel Mairs is Professor of Classics and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Reading, United Kingdom. She works on ancient and nineteenth-to-early-twentieth-century multilingualism in the Middle East, with a particular interest in interpreters. Her books include The Graeco-Bactrian World (ed. 2021), The Hellenistic Far East: Archaeology, Language and Identity in Greek Central Asia (2014), Archaeologists, Tourists, Interpreters (with Maya Muratov, 2015) and From Khartoum to Jerusalem: The Dragoman Solomon Negima and his Clients (2016). Her monograph on the history of phrasebooks for colloquial Arabic and their authors, Arabic Dialogues, has recently come out with University College London Press (2024).