Tectonophysics

Grek S., Landahl J., Lawn M., Lundahl C.

Raftery D., Spencer S.

This chapter provides an overview of how historians of education have drawn on the theoretical lenses of intersectionality and transnationalism. The chapter discusses the major themes in this book and the approaches taken by the contributors.

Guidi P.

In the 1960s and 1970s, a strong student movement developed in Ethiopia, grounded in the Marxist and anti-imperialist culture of the global sixties. This chapter proposes to understand how, while excluded from politics by sexist representations, women activists translated into Amharic the Marxist theory on the “women question” to legitimise their participation and put women’s issues on the general political agenda. Then, they envisaged using knowledge to unite all Ethiopian women across the social classes. The intersectional approach reveals the contradictions that arose when Ethiopian women activists reflected about their class position in relation to poor Ethiopian women and conceptualised knowledge as a bridge to transcend class distinction.

Wenzek F.

This chapter investigates the personal papers of a British female administrator who was responsible for expanding girls’ schooling in Tanganyika Territory during the late colonial period. The richness of the correspondences and of the photographic albums she gave to the Rhodes House Library (Oxford) allows us to understand how social relationships, emotions and representations participated in shaping a colonial policy. Through an intersectional approach, I analyse how this female administrator positioned herself within the colonial society and how she devised a policy for girls’ schooling that was rooted in her representations of race, gender and age. I also question the links she forged with various colonial spaces: the metropolis that sent policy guidelines, other British colonies where she searched for examples and ideas, and the Tanganyika Territory where she built a strong network of female teachers. Thus, I demonstrate how the policies she devised had a neat local rooting. I also highlight the contradictory effects of race and gender. The female schooling system she worked in was fraught with racial barriers. Nonetheless, European colonisers and missionaries exchanged ideas, knowledge and emotions with their African pupils and colleagues to an extent which knows no equivalent in the male schooling system.

Whitehead K.

Using a transnational framework to focus on women educators in the mid-twentieth century, this chapter explores Minette Jee’s (1918–2002) working life from the late 1930s to the 1980s, problematising her national identity and the dynamics of progressive education. Graduating from Gipsy Hill Training College as a modern British woman teacher in 1939, Jee took advantage of expanding opportunities for work in teacher education and school inspection in Britain, transnational humanitarian agencies such as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Morocco between 1959 and 1962, then the Kindergarten Union of South Australia and the British Pre-school Playgroups Association in the 1970s. Jee’s working life was enmeshed in national and international politics, and this chapter demonstrates that whatever the institutional context, Jee’s racialised national identity as a white-British middle-class woman educator was intertwined with her decision-making, relationships and commitments to a universalising model of childhood and progressive education.

Rasmussen A., Andreasen K.E.

The first part of the twentieth century involved profound changes of the economic structures of society. New welfare regimes occurred that focused on public health and education and, in the Nordic countries, led to several initiatives aimed at widening knowledge and disseminating it to many and new groups of people. They included women who had not hitherto been offered much schooling and whose situations also varied much according to social class, space, and place of upbringing. Such gender and intersectional issues are usually not dealt with in welfare state theories but will be focal points of this chapter. In the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, these developments led to an increased focus on home economics as an educational and professional field. Accordingly, the focus is on Scandinavian networks on home economics education for women in the decades around 1900. We aim at understanding the backgrounds of the networks: whom they targeted, what tasks they comprised for the role of women, and how their ideas of ideal womanhood intersected with gender and social class, whether located in urban or rural areas in Scandinavia?

Kagawa S.

This chapter aims to explore the intertwined development of women’s education in modern Japan, with particular focus on the influential figure of Shimoda Utako and her educational initiative that transcended national boundaries. By examining Shimoda’s personal background, social context, and geopolitical landscape of Japan, the chapter illuminated how her philosophy of ryōsai kenbo (goodwife, wise mother) emerged as multifaceted amalgamation of Confucian principles, nationalist fervor, modern ideals, and feminist aspirations. Shimoda’s complex relationship with the West stirred up within her a deep-seated sense of national identity and a burgeoning commitment to Pan-Asianism. This ideological awakening propelled her to devote herself to the advancement of women’s education not only in Japan but also in neighboring China. As an esteemed educator, Shimoda became a symbol of the complexity and contradictions inherent in women’s education. Her thoughts and practices illustrate the educational evolution of Japanese women involving intersectional discrimination of gender, class, and race.

Rosoff N.G.

This chapter discusses how this volume places intersectionality at the center of its organization, recognizing that individuals have multiple facets that construct their identity. The manner in which these facets interplay and interconnect shapes the subjects of the essays. With gender as a critical lens through which to view multiple identities, authors also address other aspects of identity including class, race, nationality, and religion. While each chapter stands on its own, they also contribute to the notion of intersectionality not only by their content but also by their interplay with other chapters in the book, thus forming their own intellectual network. Several key themes emerge when considering these chapters as a whole. The conclusion considers how various authors address the themes of national identity, gender, the role of networks, race, religion, and class in their chapters. Many chapters incorporate multiple themes and this discussion is not meant to be an exhaustive catalogue of such treatments. Rather, it allows readers to reflect on what they have read and how the chapters intersect with various ideas and each other.

Ferris R., Raftery D.

This chapter examines the leadership styles and education impact of two women religious (nuns), Mother M. Teresa Ball and Mother M. Michael Corcoran, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Mother Teresa Ball was foundress of the Irish branch of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Known as the Loreto institute, it founded schools and convents in many parts of the world, including Canada, India, Mauritius and Gibraltar. Mother Michael Corcoran was the fourth Superior General of the Loreto institute, and had a significant impact on improving its educational provision. The transnational networking strategies of these two women were very different: Ball had to make swift decisions, while remaining at a remove from the nuns she sent overseas. Though she never visited the international convents that she established, she was closely involved in their development. Corcoran was a ‘hands-on’ leader, with direct involvement in many aspects of Loreto education around the globe, and first-hand experience of many of their international schools. Her visitation to convents in India and Australia are central to this chapter, and show how she expanded the transnational reach of Loreto education. The chapter draws on archival collections in India, Australia, Ireland, and Canada, to create a compelling analysis of how two very different women marshalled the resources at their disposal, in order to develop a system of Loreto education that was transnational in its scope and ambition.

Vidal D., Rabelo R.

The sisters Iracema Silveira (1900–1978) and Noemy Silveira (1902–1980) are the guiding thread of this narrative. Born in the interior of the state of São Paulo, they built a professional trajectory in which family ties, educational networks, care relationships, and international travels were intertwined and offered paths for understanding the strategies mobilized by women to remain in the teaching profession in public service and build careers in the first half of the twentieth century in Brazil, overcoming gender and disabilities issues. At the age of eight, in 1908, Iracema had an accident that affected one of her eyes. Visual impairment made school attendance difficult, which was overcome with Noemy’s help. The sisters completed their teacher training together and started their teaching careers together. The paths began to separate in 1927, when Iracema began her journey to become a school librarian, and Noemy embraced an ambitious training project that involved traveling to the United States, studying at the Teachers College of Columbia University, and taking up the Chair of Educational Psychology at the University of São Paulo. The story of these two women demonstrates the varied ways of occupying the teaching profession, the family strategies for career advancement, and the different possibilities of being a woman in Brazil.

Chiu P.P.

This chapter examines the politics of secondary education for Chinese girls in interwar Hong Kong through a brief review of three girls’ schools distinguished by language, class, cultural and political ideals. Adopting a transnational approach, it discusses the unique position of interwar Hong Kong as a colonial-diaspora space, and explores in what ways this social space facilitated the flow of people, funds, networks, and ideals underpinning the development of Chinese girls’ education beyond the confines of borders and regimes. It further explores the interrelated notions of nation-building, social mobility, cultural capital, and gender ideals underlying the expansion of the schools studied. The chapter also applies the analytical framework of intersectionality in analysing the negotiation of identities—gender, class, ethnic, cultural, and national—of the male sponsors, women educators, and students in a colonial context where the meanings of ‘Chineseness’ were being contested and redefined. Furthermore, the chapter demonstrates that the propagation of internationalism through the transnational youth networks the students engaged in, and the growing prominence of cosmopolitanism as a lived experience in urban Hong Kong, shaped the women’s and girls’ cultivation of a gendered, ‘modern’ self in the interwar period.

Campbell-Day M.

This chapter seeks to further an understanding of the network of educational connections which assisted a British educationalist, Mary Gurney (1836–1917), to develop female education during her Victorian and Edwardian career. The chapter uses the lenses of intersectionality and network theory simultaneously to further such understanding. It investigates the similarities and differences in the social locations of Gurney’s identity and the identities of key members of her relational and spatial network. It also discusses how these advantageous and disadvantageous locations provided her and those members with networked opportunities to contribute to educational reform at local, national, and transnational levels during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In addition, it places those opportunities within the wider context of Gurney’s bureaucratic practices and some of the important economic, political, and social factors behind the educational reforms of her age. Nevertheless, the network’s fallible and biased nature is not ignored and neither are the consequent limitations in the outcomes of its members’ educational work. Although their networking for reform produced some significant change, that networking was not consistently or comprehensively productive.

Angsusingha S.

This chapter examines American women missionaries’ roles in cultivating gender differences, national identity, and civic values through education at the American School for Girls in Iraq founded by the United Mission in Iraq, a joint missionary project between the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in the United States in the 1920s–1950s. It also explores how Iraqi students negotiated Anglo-Protestant ideals of femininity to suit their needs. Drawing on the United Mission in Iraq records, yearbooks, and interviews with former students, the chapter analyzes these materials using the intersection of gender, race, and class. It argues that missionary educators inculcated American Christian norms of femininity and civic values in Iraqi girls through Bible studies, Western academics, American sports, and group activities. By instilling in their students morality, submissiveness, and service-mindedness, the missionaries hoped to cultivate “Christian” homemakers who would serve their community and the Iraqi state. Despite the missionaries’ intentions, several Iraqi girls negotiated traditional gender roles by entering professions and pursuing higher education and work abroad. By investigating these American-Iraqi interactions in an educational setting, the chapter demonstrates how the American School for Girls served as a transcultural and transnational space for intellectual and cultural exchange across religious and national boundaries.

Grek S., Landahl J., Lawn M., Lundahl C.

Chapter 1 , Organising the Future of Educational Research in Post-war Europe and Beyond, discusses the rise of transnational research in education, and its close connection to the emerging field of global education and knowledge production and policy. The concept of the ‘disembedded laboratory’ draws attention to spatially oriented histories of scientific thought and practice, where knowledge is produced in the interaction of humans, objects, and spaces, and in constant practices. In this context, the chapter also elaborates on the concepts of networking and governing.

Grek S., Landahl J., Lawn M., Lundahl C.

Chapter 6 , Editing of the International Encyclopaedia of Education, 1980–1994, analyses how Husén used his wide network of worldwide educational experts to move beyond the creation of research knowledge, the subject of his earlier work, to its description and publication across world settings. The monumental task he directed, the International Encyclopaedia of Education (IEE), was to make a first attempt to describe the shaping of post-war educational research—reinstated in many national settings, using an important range of influential actors, and their methods, texts and procedures. In addition, the chapter describes the problems in overcoming the challenges of scholarly editing in international knowledge production, and the problems of objectivity and bias.