Reforming female teachers’ education in early twentieth-century Greece: the legislative initiatives of Dimitris Glinos

In the early twentieth century, as part of a broader reorganisation of public life in Greece, intense criticism emerged regarding women’s education in general and the education of female teachers in particular. Part of this criticism stemmed from representatives of Ekpaideftikos Dimotikismos (or Educational Demoticism), such as Dimitris Glinos. An educator who had studied philosophy and psychology in Greece and Germany, Glinos was one of the central figures of Ekpaideftikos Dimotikismos. In his writings, Glinos highlighted the deficiencies in the education provided to female teachers, regarding its content as well as the lack of an organised state educational framework comparable to the one available to male teachers. Based on this context, the purpose of this paper is to identify Glinos’s concerns about the education of female teachers and examine the efforts to implement his ideas as reflected in the 1913 educational bills proposed by Minister of Education Ioannis Tsirimokos, in which Glinos played a key role. The primary sources for this research are Glinos’s writings on Female Teacher Training Schools, as well as legislative texts on education from 1913. The research methodology employed in this study is historical hermeneutics. This approach situates the sources within the broader ideological framework of the early twentieth century, with particular attention to prevailing conceptions of women’s nature and their prescribed role in society. It further examines how these conceptions shaped the education of female teachers and the expectations surrounding their social and professional roles.