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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:'I Studied with the Nuns, Learning to Make Blouses': Gender Ideology and Colonial Education in Mozambique
Author:Sheldon, Kathleen E.ISNI
Year:1998
Periodical:International Journal of African Historical Studies
Volume:31
Issue:3
Pages:595-625
Language:English
Geographic terms:Mozambique
Portugal
Subjects:colonialism
schooling
girls
Women's Issues
Religion and Witchcraft
History and Exploration
Education and Oral Traditions
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Historical/Biographical
Cultural Roles
Education and Training
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/221477
Abstract:This paper examines the history of girls' education in colonial Mozambique in order to better explain the opportunities for schooling offered to African families and the choices they made for their daughters. It surveys the establishment of the colonial educational system between the 1880s and the 1920s, the strengthening of the position of the Catholic missions, especially after the introduction of the 'New State' by Salazar in 1928, and the resulting increase in the number of mission schools and students in the 1920s and 1930s, and the growing regulation by the Portuguese government of the colonial education programme in the 1940s and 1950s. It shows that Portuguese colonial officials and mission teachers believed that education was an opportunity to 'improve' Mozambican women, and some Mozambican girls and women also saw schooling as a route to better lives. Yet very few boys or girls were able to attend any school, so that at the end of colonialism Mozambique had an exceptionally high rate of illiteracy. In that larger context, girls had fewer opportunities than boys to attend school regularly, and the girls' curriculum featured a gender-differentiated course of study that emphasized domestic science skills. Notes, ref.
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