Ina Pei-Ru Yang
Ph.D. Student, Taiwan History, National Chengchi University
I'm a historian-in-training working on gender, education, and transitional justice in Cold War Taiwan. I'm currently a Ph.D. student at the Graduate Institute of Taiwan History, National Chengchi University, where I also completed my M.A., and I was formerly a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica.
My M.A. thesis, Policy, Power, and Gender: The Rise and Formation of Female Teachers in Taipei's Elementary Education (1945–1979), traces how female teachers in Taiwan, once a minority under Japanese colonial rule, came to dominate elementary education by the 1970s. Using Taipei Women's Normal School as a case study, I examine how education policy, the state-funded stipend system, and recruitment practices facilitated women's entry into the profession, while state and social forces cast female teachers as both "virtuous wives and good mothers" and "educators devoted to national renewal." Drawing on oral history interviews, I also show how teachers navigated these expectations and exercised agency in their daily work, arguing that the feminization of teaching was not a natural evolution but the outcome of intersecting policy, cultural, and social forces.
Beyond academia, I volunteer with the Dr. Chen Wen-Chen Memorial Foundation and Taiwan Youth Association for Transitional Justice, working with survivors of political violence and serving as camp staff, museum guide, and festival emcee. Research interests: Women's History, Oral History, White Terror and Transitional Justice.