The story of expanded women’s education is one of the foundational stories of the modern Tunisian state. The revision of the Personal Status Code at independence in 1956 that granted Tunisian women legal rights in marriage, divorce, and inheritance has ever since placed Tunisia at the forefront of women’s rights debates in the Middle East and North Africa. Scholars like Mounira Charrad have emphasized the demographic particularities of Tunisia as a small state and the political vision of its nationalist leaders as crucial factors in its post-colonial focus on women’s causes. But this narrative, which closely ties national independence to women’s emancipation, has a tendency to blur inequalities in women’s development across social classes in Tunisia. A more thorough study of the modern history of Tunisian girls’ education must take into account the records of the first schools for Tunisian Muslim girls between 1900 and 1958, which provided a primary education combining a limited French language education with professional training in crafts such as carpet weaving. This study examines the carnets historiques and enrollment registers at the national Museum of Education in Tunis for several girls’ schools, and places their stories within the larger narrative of women’s expanded political participation in the Tunisian nationalist and early post-colonial periods. The incorporation of girls’ primary schools into this narrative reveals a more explicit economic role of girls’ education in Tunisian society. At independence for example, 46% of female students were enrolled in a professional track of studies and received training in topics such as clothes making and nursing. The new professional focus of many schools also promised to open economically lucrative careers to girls, who began as early as the 1930s to enter fields of medicine, law, and business. By the 1950s, the rhetoric of girls’ schools also emphasized themes of choice and discovery in a young girl’s entry into school, mimicking themes of the nationalist movement. According to one contributor to a Tunisian women’s journal, through school “the young girl searches the knowledge to build her life,” an acknowledgement of a new valued female agency in society. This sense of choice also tended to blur class distinctions, as women across social classes reported significant, life-altering participation in schools.