Education, generation, and gender: the rural youth movement in New Zealand, 1920-1973

Abstract

This thesis analyses the historical dynamics of education, generation, and gender in New Zealand's agricultural communities by making a case study of the rural youth movement. The government established the Young Farmers' Clubs [YFC] to provide informal agricultural education in response to agricultural education's unpopularity in secondary schools. New Zealand's dependence on agricultural exports and the desire for agricultural production which was competitive, efficient, and scientific motivated the government's interest in rural youth. The government ignored farm women in its agricultural education programmes until the results of the first professional sociological study of a farming community in 1940. This study, by W. Doig, demonstrated the importance of women's farm work for the farm home such as poultry-keeping, the cultivation of fruit trees and vegetable gardens, dairy work, and the care of young farm animals. The government became interested in the economic value of this farm work, known as 'sideline' farming or farm work for home consumption, as definitions of factors influencing farm economies expanded during the 1930s. Women's processing of 'sideline' products for home consumption, the second aspect to women's farm work for the home, was categorised as 'domestic' work. Historically, women's farm work for the home was variously described as 'domestic' or 'farm' work because the difference between farm production and the processing of farm products, was not clearly identified or defined. This research on the rural youth movement, and the government's new interest in farm women after 1940, led me to reconsult the official statistics. The reliability of statistical evidence on farm women in the New Zealand Cenus has been a subject of controversy. I clarify some of the problems associated with statistical collections before 1951 and argue that the statistics are a meaningful account of women's work in commercial agriculture. The statistics can be used profitably if distinctions are made between farm work which is 'commercial' and attracting a self-supporting income, and farm work which is non-commercial and undertaken primarily for home consumption. Finally, having established that the increase of women working in commercial agriculture is a 'real' increase, I analyse the rural youth movement in relation to the thesis' broader themes. Although agricultural education was available to young rural women, it was delivered and conceived as a function of future marriage to farmers. Most Country Girls' Clubs members preferred to look for urban occupations. The thesis finds that generation defined social and economic change, as much, if not more, than gender.