Fit to Teach

Honorable Mention, 2006 Outstanding Book Award presented by the History of Education Society

Winner of the 2005 Critics’ Choice Award presented by the American Educational Studies Association

Examines the construction of gender in public school employment.

Jackie M. Blount offers a history of school workers in the United States who have desired persons of the same sex as well as those who have transgressed conventional gender bounds. Despite recent impressive social and political gains for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons, schools remain a zone of great vulnerability for the larger LGBT movement. This thoroughly researched, vivid, and engaging book details the largely untold story of how this state of affairs developed during the twentieth century. It also profiles some of the remarkable people who have risked their careers by brilliantly organizing for LGBT rights, openly challenging discriminatory laws and practices, and educating their communities about conditions for LGBT school workers and students alike.

“Fit to Teach … makes a significant contribution not only to the history of U.S. school personnel with same-sex desires and to those who were transgressive gender-wise in the twentieth century, but also this work constitutes a welcome addition to the literature on the history of North American education in general.” — Journal of Homosexuality

“Anyone who thinks gay rights is a new issue in schools should read this book … Jackie Blount documents more than a century’s worth of ‘ever-more insidious methods of rooting out homosexuality among job candidates and current employees.’” — American School Board Journal

“Despite the relatively low profile of school workers who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT), this historical research is critically necessary to counter the prevalent assumption that intolerance of LGBT school workers has always existed. Instead the author examines how current conditions have developed in specific historical contexts … Manifest throughout is an account of how unconventional gender has resisted intolerance and demonstrated breathtaking power in pursuing a chosen profession … Highly recommended.” — CHOICE

“There is no more significant topic in the field of teaching and teacher education today than the one addressed in this book. Blount offers a thorough and sensitive examination of this controversial topic.” — Wayne J. Urban, coauthor of American Education: A History, Third Edition

“The author’s use and description of ‘same-sex desire’ allows for an entire reframing of significant questions related to the history and sociology of education. This work taps into an area that, collectively, we (educators and the society at large) know very little about. The author makes a convincing case for our need to know and begins to suggest the policy implications and pedagogical implications of the possession of such knowledge. This is a groundbreaking book.” — Thalia M. Mulvihill, Ball State University

Jackie M. Blount is a Professor in the School of Educational Policy and Leadership at the Ohio State University and the author of Destined to Rule the Schools: Women and the Superintendency, 1873–1995, also published by SUNY Press.