New report reveals systemic erasure of women from history curriculum

Research published on Wednesday [24 September] has confirmed that women are largely absent from Key Stage 3 (KS3) history lessons in English schools and quantifies the extent and scale of the problem. The charity, End Sexism in Schools, is calling for women’s contributions to be included in what is taught, to ensure historical accuracy and a fair representation of women’s lives. 

End Sexism in Schools’ new report, ‘The Great History Heist: Reclaiming Women’s Place in the History Curriculum’, highlights that women are the focus of only 12 per cent of history lessons while 59 per cent feature no women at all.  

Debbie Brazil, founder and CEO of End Sexism in Schools, said: “It is crucial that students understand that women in history is not a separate topic: women’s lives are part of history. A representative curriculum is not optional enrichment but a matter of historical accuracy and a fair education. Without it, we are not just ignoring half of the population, we are teaching a false version of the past.  

“As a result, girls cannot relate to what they are taught about the past, boys miss opportunities to develop empathy and positive role models, and society inherits a distorted historical narrative that plays into the epidemic of misogyny that blights the lives of young people.” 

The charity analysed 341 responses from freedom of information requests sent to 1,200 England schools about pre-GCSE history teaching. It also found: 

• Named women taught are dominated by four ‘exceptional’ figures: Elizabeth I, Mary I, Emmeline Pankhurst, and Emily Davison.
• Of those schools teaching women’s suffrage, only 65 per cent taught about women’s political campaigns before the 19th century, decontextualising the suffrage movement.
• The history curriculum’s division into specific periods creates barriers to women’s inclusion.
• The main barriers cited by schools to increasing the representation of women at KS3 were curriculum time constraints (67 per cent), limited planning time (43 per cent), and lack of resources (21 per cent).

End Sexism in Schools is calling for coordinated action across the education system to reclaim women’s place in the history curriculum. The National Curriculum must mandate that women are taught as an integral part of all historical topics, while examination boards must reform specifications and assessments to explicitly include more women. 

The UK Government is currently undertaking a Curriculum and Assessment Review, led by Professor Becky Francis. When Professor Francis released an interim report in March this year it included plans to improve representation in the curriculum, but there was no mention of gender balance.  

Author, Kate Mosse, whose young adult book ‘Feminist History for Every Day of the Year’ was published on 18 September, said: “We need to put all the women and girls whose achievements have gone unrecorded back into the history books and into our classrooms. Women and men built the world together, and it’s essential that this is reflected in the History curriculum. We can’t sideline the achievements of half the population.”