Reclaiming a Conversation: The Ideal of Educated Woman

In this book Jane Roland Martin joins in conversation with five philosophers—Plato, Rousseau, Mary Wollstonecraft, Catharine Beecher, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman—about how women should be educated in an ideal society, and she draws out implications for the education of both sexes today.
“A timely and important contribution both to feminist theory and to the philosophy of education.”—Carol Gilligan, Harvard University
“Fascinating. . . . The juxtaposition of views, together with Martin’s critical comparisons, illuminates each account.”—Martha Nussbaum, New York Review of Books
“Martin’s careful work shows [that]. . . a serious effort to design ideal education for women makes it necessary also to rethink men’s schooling. This is an important book.”—Library Journal
“Martin has provided a uniquely valuable service to educators.”—Sandra Harding, Journal of Education
“This is a decidedly intelligent and well-written book.”—Margaret Canovan, Times Higher Education Supplement
“The book ends with questions rather than answers: how best can each of us reflect all things human in our own lives, and how can education prepare us to do so effectively? The great strength of Martin’s work is the historical resonance that it gives both to these questions and the understanding of their fundamental importance for men and women alike.”—Margaret Rouse Bates, Signs
Selected as an American Educational Studies Association’s “Critics Choice” book for 1986