‘There’s no such thing as a girls’ public school; there are only types’: the structure of girls’ elite schooling in twentieth-century Britain

This article explores the complex eco-system of girls’ elite schooling in twentieth-century Britain using The Girls’ School Yearbook (GSYB)- a volume published by the Association of Headmistresses to provide information on the ‘leading girls’ public schools’. We undertake a Latent Class Analysis of the GSYB to draw out the underlying patterns in the nature of the schools. We make two central arguments, first that this analysis demonstrates the increasing importance of academic criteria for women’s elite formation within an enduring but adaptable set of institutions. However, and secondly, we also identify a persistent non-academic strand reflecting continuing influence of gendered criteria and ambivalent attitudes towards girls’ education in models of elite femininity.