Missionaries have been subject to academic and societal debate. Some scholars highlight their contribution to the spread of modernity and development among local societies, whereas others question their motives and emphasise their inseparable connection with colonialism. In this volume, fifteen authors – from both Europe and the Global South – address these often polemical positions by focusing on education, one of the most prominent fields in which missionaries have been active. They elaborate on Protestantism as well as Catholicism, work with cases from the 18th to the 21st century, and cover different colonial empires in Asia and Africa. The volume introduces new angles, such as gender, the agency of the local population, and the perspective of the child.
Kim Christiaens is director of KADOC-KU Leuven, Documentation and Research Centre on Religion, Culture and Society and professor of contemporary history at KU Leuven.
Pieter Verstraete is associate professor of history of education at KU Leuven and curator of the annual Leuven DisABILITY Film festival.
Idesbald Goddeeris is professor of colonial history at the research unit MoSa (Modernity and Society, 1800-2000), KU Leuven.
Mission and Education. An Introduction
Kim Christiaens, Idesbald Goddeeris and Pieter Verstraete
PART I: DILEMMAS AND TRANSITIONS
The Educational Turn in Catholic Missionary Policies and Practices. Belgian Franciscans in China, 1872-1949
Carine Dujardin
Fashioning a Catholic Javanese Elite. The Catholic Mission and Colonial Education in Central Java, 1904-1942
Maaike Derksen
The Postcolonial Expansion of a Mission. Jesuit Education in Ranchi, India, after 1950
Aditi Athreya, Rinald D’Souza and Idesbald Goddeeris
The Jesuit Mission and Business Education in Contemporary India. The Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneshwar
Lourens van Haaften
PART II: COLLABORATION AND COMPETITION
The Colonial State, Protestant Missionaries and Indian Education, 1790-1858
Parimala V. Rao
Tending Community and Country. Jesuit Colleges in Colonial India, 1835-1902
Joseph Bara
Breaking the Colour Bar? Missionary Education in Australasian Colonies before World War II
Gwendal Rannou
Forming Elites of the Church and of the Nation. Lutheran Resistance to Protestant Secondary Education in Madagascar in the 1920s and 1930s
Ellen Vea Rosnes
PART III: RELIGION AND SOCIETY
The Africa Inland Mission and the Education for Girls among the Kipsigis of the Kericho and Bomet Counties, Kenya, 1900-1945
Mary Chepkemoi
Femininity and Everyday Spaces at St. Stephen’s Girls’ College in Hong Kong, 1921-1941
Meng Wang
Melanesian Children as European Wards. Representation and ‘Redemption’ of Colonial Children in Late-Nineteenth-Century Netherlands
Marleen Reichgelt
List of Abbreviations
About the Authors
Abbreviations
