Ingrid BRUEHWILER, University of Berne, Switzerland

In Namibia different school projects are financed by global institutions such as for example the World Bank, the European Union (EU/EC), the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID, World Bank Report Nr. 84, 2005, p.74-78). The analysis of Namibian school projects like Education for All (EFA), Vision 2030, Education and Training Sector Improvement Programme (ETSIP), National Development Plan (NDP 3), Learner-centered Education and Cluster-schools show a high standardization of western ideas, a strong networking of the different projects themselves and that the standardization got tighter over the years in some domains but not in all (Brühwiler, 2009). Additionally they are all very close to ideas of the mentioned global investors. But as there is a high standardization on the formal level – which means that isomorphic structures can be shown easily – it’s interesting to analyze if this standardization of western ideas can be seen as well in daily school live. Meyer (2005) talks of isomorphic structures on the formal level of organizations and loose coupling on the substantial level. Can this gap be seen in the different school projects in Namibia? Where are coherencies and where are fractions? Furthermore: The loans of the global capital providers are given for certain goals to increase the education of the Namibian children. These goals are in several projects described in terms of access, equity, quality und democracy from the capital providers as well as from the responsible person or organization of the different school projects (as example World Bank Report Nr. 84, 2005 and EFA, 2002). But how do teachers integrate these goals in their teaching? Is the standardization as high as on the formal level? Chabbott (2003) points out that EFA framework, even if they are often constructed in top-down manner, are not necessarily products of elite interests, but isomorphism is at least in part coercive: “countries that hope to receive funding from international donors are often required to have a framework for action with international agendas” (Chabbott, 2003, p. 164). Therefore it is very interesting to show different effects of global capital providers to the school system in Namibia from their independence in 1990 to 2008 on formal and substantial levels and to compare the gained results with standardization processes.

Coordinator(s): Peter KALLAWAY; Kate ROUSMANIERE

[Part 2: session 6.13]

Kate Rousmaniere and Peter Kallaway are attempting to promote an initiatve to stimulate research in the field of African colonial education. Our particular emphasis is to engage a new generation of African scholars with the kinds of work that ISCHE promotes. As such this panel is seen as the first stage of a broader plan which seeks to hold a workship on African Colonial Education in Cape Town in 2013 under the auspices of ISCHE and SACHES, the local comparative education and and history of education society. The aim of the panal and the workshop will be to draw together international scholars and to focus on attracting African scholars to share the state of research in the field. To date we have been in touch with a number of people and have a number of possible contributors but we are rather lacking representation from Africa.

Constructing the Identity of the Government Teacher, Cape Colony, 1839-1865

In 1839 the British colonial government at the Cape of Good Hope launched one of the first systems of fully state regulated and funded education in the British Empire. It was free,nonracial and intended to provide a 'superior' education for the colonial subjects, children of former slaves, Khoisan and of settlers alike. Many of the teachers were Scottish and required to work with texts originating in Edinburgh. This paper investigates the way in which the male teachers charged with implementing this system constructed their identity. It also examines how both the system and colonial society constructed their identity for them. The vision for the system was ambitious but the realities of their tasks ultimately exhausting and depressing. The paper examines the ways in which the teachers 'performed' their identities central to which were notions of respectability and knowledgability.

Colonial education in Kenya: the autobiographical lens

Kenneth KING, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom

Over the last few years there have appeared autobiographies of several distinguished Kenyans. For our purposes we focus on three, all of whom went through the same secondary school in Kenya, Alliance High School, and all had some experience of tertiary education in East Africa before going to the UK for further education. They all then returned and taught in the University of Nairobi in the 1960s. Their names were James Ngugi (Ngugi wa Thiongo), the novelist; Alan (Bethwell) Ogot, one of Africa's most well-known historians; and Ben Kipkorir, historian, banker, diplomat. We are interested in how they conceptualised their colonial schooling, a schooling which selected them into an educated elite, into being one of "the fortunate few". How did these three students view the socialisation and the selection functions of the school they had succeeded in entering? How critically did they view the curriculum which was claimed to be “adapted” to Africa, following the influential Phelps-Stokes Commission to East Africa in 1924? What was the racial distance between staff and students in a school still largely staffed by Europeans in what was still "a white man"s country"? And what angle, if any, did the school take on the Mau Mau insurgency that was taking place in Kenya from the early 1950s?" As two of these were historians and one a novelist, we may expect them to have analysed with care and insight the episode of their education in Kenya Colony.

Sarah Forbes Bonetta: exploring the changing role of an educational icon

Charlotte HASTINGS, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom

This paper explores the ways in which the biography of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, an early African student in England in the 19th Century, recurred in the transatlantic late 19th Century and early 20th Century press. Bonetta’s dramatic life story included rescue from slavery and “adoption” by Queen Victoria, proved irresistible copy for numerous publications in Britain and West Africa. Her biography illustrates a gendered example of the vibrant connections across what Gilroy has termed the Black Atlantic (1993). This research draws upon relatively rich resources of a surviving print and photographic archive, including within the Royal Collections, relatively unusually for the period. Using my wider research on reporting of the print media of girls’ education debates in the early 20th Century, this paper demonstrates the ways in which Bonetta’s biography was used in different ways to reflect changing agendas relating to education in West Africa, and particularly in terms of the education of girls and young women. This reflects the rich and diverse newsprint production taking place in West Africa and Britain in the period, (Omu, 1978, Potter, 2007) offering a range of approaches and opinions to education. In particular, the paper will discuss the debates around girls’ education in the context of developing colonial interest in the topic, as Newell has demonstrated (2002) the active role that education played in forming audiences for African newspapers. Through reference to colonial education policy debate, the paper will demonstrate connections between the shifting imperial and community agendas for girls’ education, including the way in which Bonetta’s life history continued to be mined for relevant parables for (then) contemporary students. This will be contrasted to the development of biographical news of women in the colonial press, to suggest continuities and change in the ways in which women’s educational achievements were recorded and valorised over the period.

[Part 2: session 6.12]

La Société des Nations et la protection du patrimoine archéologique

Chasses gardées dans le champ de la coopération intellectuelle. Concurrences, défis et paradoxes d'un Bureau au service d'une «internationale de l'éducation» (BIE - 1925-1952)

L'évolution du Bureau international de l'éducation (BIE) entre 1925 et 1952 constitue une manifestation particulièrement significative des défis et paradoxes des tentatives de construire une «internationale» de l'éducation qui puisse faire fi des conflits de pouvoir et des concurrences entre instances (associations, Etats, personnalités) tout en nécessitant leur coopération (caution, soutien, voire tutelle) pour survivre et accomplir sa mission. Sur la base des volumineuses archives à disposition (archives privées, Fondation Archives Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Archives Jean Piaget, Archives de la Société des Nations et de l'UNESCO, et surtout Archives du BIE) de nature diverse (correspondance privée et institutionnelle, bulletin, littérature grise, bases documentaires, enquêtes internationales), nous nous proposons ici de cerner l'impact concret des engagements du BIE et ses premiers promoteurs en focalisant l'attention sur les questions et tensions suivantes. Quels sont les acteurs et réseaux à l'origine de la création du BIE en 1925-1926 et comment se positionnent-ils par rapport aux initiatives analogues (à Paris, Bruxelles, La Haye), pour s'imposer et s'arroger la primeur de l'idée et de sa concrétisation? Quelles sont ses liens–soutiens-rivalités – avec les pouvoirs établis, Etats/Nations et institutions parallèles existantes (SdN, BIT) et comment se négocient les attributions respectives entre ces instances? Quels modèles d'internationalité - d'internationalisme ce premier BIE promeut-il? Comment ces liens et ces modèles sont-ils redéfinis à l'heure des différentes reconfigurations du BIE, en particulier lorsque ses leaders décident en 1929 de recourir au soutien des pouvoirs publics et gouvernements étatiques pour que l'institution puisse survivre et se déployer? Quelle marge de manoeuvre une institution internationale de l'éducation, qu'elle soit privée ou intergouvernementale, peut-elle avoir en matière d'internationalisation de l'éducation, face à la chasse gardée des nations, qui investissent l'éducation comme leur instrument pour former leur citoyen, de fait se définir une identité propre, cautionnant frontières culturelles et nationales? Concrètement, comment, en période de guerre ou à l'issue de celle-ci, le BIE se positionne-t-il à l'interface de nations en crise et parvient-il ou pas à déjouer les conflits politiques et militaires pour oeuvrer, moyennant l'éducation, à une coopération intellectuelle? Comment les scientifiques négocient-ils leurs attributions: comment se positionnent-ils face aux risques d'instrumentalisation de la science et gèrent-ils les tensions susceptibles de voir le jour entre les causes nationalistes et internationalistes? Est-il possible de cerner quel est l'impact de leur engagement, comme scientifique, sur ces causes internationalistes?

La paix par la jeunesse? L’éducation au pacifisme dans les programmes des réseaux internationaux de soutien à la Société des Nations

Olga HIDALGO-WEBER, Université de Genève, Suisse; Joëlle DROUX, ERHISE, Université de Genève, Suisse

Cette communication vise à étudier, à travers le «case studies» de deux réseaux internationaux de soutien à l’œuvre de la SDN, la nature des projets éducatifs qui ont pu être mis en œuvre afin de diffuser les idéaux de paix et de coopération internationale durant l’entre-deux-guerres. Il s’agit d’une part de la League of Nations Union (LNU), créée en 1918, qui devint la plus grande et la plus influente organisation pacifiste dans l’entre-deux-guerres en Grande-Bretagne; et d’autre part du Comité d’Entente des Grandes Associations Internationales, créé en 1925 à Paris (rattaché à l’Institut International de Coopération Intellectuelle), qui groupait les plus importantes fédérations ou associations d’éducateurs pour leur donner une plate-forme commune d’expression. 1) Cette communication vise d’abord à identifier les réseaux actifs au sein de ces deux grandes organisations fédératives, leurs relations avec les milieux politiques ou confessionnels, mais aussi avec les fonctionnaires internationaux de la SDN ou du BIT, et les milieux internationalistes qui gravitent autour de ces organisations. 2) D’autre part, on présentera les moyens mis en œuvre par ces associations pour atteindre leurs objectifs, en particulier leur volonté de développer et diffuser des programmes concrets d’éducation au pacifisme. La LNU définit en effet son propre champ d’action prioritairement comme une action de propagande. Celle-ci se fera par le biais de développement de projets pédagogiques en direction de toutes les couches de la population britannique, avec un effort particulier pour toucher la jeunesse. Le Comité d’Entente a quant à lui développé une diversité d’activités éducatives destinées à œuvrer au désarmement moral, mais infléchit son action dès le milieu des années trente pour participer plus étroitement aux productions conventionnelles du BIT en matière de formation de la jeunesse. Cette communication tentera donc de déterminer si l’action de ces deux fédérations de réseaux dans ce domaine fut marginale ou importante, en fonction des périodes considérées, quelles furent les formes que prirent ces projets éducatives et les lignes qui les animaient. 3) Après avoir mis en évidence les efforts déployés pour rallier la jeunesse à l’œuvre accomplie par les organisations intergouvernementales en matière de coopération internationale, on s’interrogera sur la réception de ces projets, les collaborations qu’ils ont suscités ou les écueils sur lesquels ils ont butés. 4)Plus généralement, on s’interrogera sur les motivations de ces efforts déployés pour rallier la jeunesse à l’œuvre accomplie par les organisations intergouvernementales en matière de coopération internationale: étaient-elles à visée vraiment internationale ou essentiellement sous-tendues par des motifs nationalistes (rayonnement d’une culture nationale, défense d’un ensemble culturel spécifique)?

L'Index translationum: un projet de coopération culturelle internationale, de l'IICI à l'Unesco