Book excerpt: "Women Teachers and Popular Education in Nineteenth-Century France is a study of the network of women's teacher training schools, known as the ecoles normales primaires, that were gradually created in France during the nineteenth century. Although this study focuses on the recruitment of teachers, their pedagogical and social instruction, and the teachers' professional formation as part of a corporate group, the book also ties these teacher-related issues to the universal development of public primary education in France. Based on numerous national and departmental archives, the study also explores the social values inherent to public education in modern France through the corporate model of the women's normal schools."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved