Fabio Giomi

This research project focuses on the female teaching staff employed by the Austro-Hungarian government in the province of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Combining research into archive and printed sources mostly in the Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian language, but also in the Judaeo-Spanish and German languages, the research aims to construct a collective biography of the Orthodox, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim female teachers employed in Bosnian primary schools between 1878 and 1918. Characterized by non-religious education, state-required celibacy, economic independence and elevate professional mobility, female teachers openly challenged existing social hierarchies and gender norms. Taking into account the intellectual and emotional circumstances, and not only the quantitative socio-economic data, the collective biography seems to be the most appropriate technique for this kind of research. Tanks to such an actor-centered perspective, the research wants to give a valuable contribution both to the social and cultural history of Southeastern Europe and to the history of education.