Feudal Privilege in Education

The concern in this chapter is with how the Church constructed the religious as teachers and as school principals, with memories of how they concurrently constructed themselves. An informing assumption is that one needs to consider these matters to arrive at an appreciation of how the religious were able to operate to pursue the Church’s interests in the classroom. Notwithstanding the nature of their religious formation and the rules that governed their lives, members of the teaching religious were not automatons in their approach to their teaching. If they had been so, then Catholic schooling could possibly have collapsed since the teaching religious would have been unable to respond to challenges, to change, and to demands of them by their superiors. While ‘religious formation’ was very much designed to produce very rigid and largely unbending individuals, the teaching religious were able to execute a certain amount of agency and be leaders even if contained within the structures of the life they lived.

Reclaiming the Sinsinawa Dominicans’ Legacy of Catholic Progressive Education

Contrary to widely held conceptions of Catholic schooling as “parochial,” in the 1890s the Dominican Sisters based in Sinsinawa, Wisconsin, created and implemented progressive ideas of education in their grammar schools and academies in the United States. By the 1930s their curriculum in Corpus Christi School in New York City received national recognition. Sr. Joan Smith, OP, and Sister Mary Nona McGreal, OP, expanded the Dominicans’ child-centered philosophy in their curriculum for Guiding Growth in Christian Social Living, a pioneering project of the Catholic University’s Commission on American Citizenship. The Dominicans’ educational ideas, regarded as “a milestone in U.S. Catholic education,” influenced hundreds of thousands of school children who came of age before Vatican II.

‘Our Catholic school’: themes and patterns in early Catholic school buildings and architecture before 1872

The transformation in Catholic schooling after the Education (Scotland) Act, 1918, is widely recognised. But research on the building of Catholic schools, beginning with the early decades of the nineteenth century, has not yet been done to a level that can support the claim that the ‘greatest impact’ on building was the transfer of voluntary Catholic primaries to the education authorities. By contrast with the history of Catholic education, there has been no thematic study of Scotland's historic school architecture. The aim here is to address that gap, and provide a foundation for further study, by tracing the early development of Catholic school buildings down to the Education (Scotland) Act, 1872. Educational historians have maintained the narrative that, before 1872, many school buildings were ‘little more than hovels’, and the date of 1918 has been identified as the watershed for improvement. That view is challenged.

Social Change and the Identity of Catholic Secondary Schooling in Zambia’s Southern Province: A Catholic and Zambian National Education Policy Analytical Perspective Since 1964

The Catholic Church has always proved to be a very dependable and reliable partner to various governments globally in terms of educational provision through Catholic educational institutions at all educational levels. Apart from such education institutions contributing to educational provision at all educational levels globally, the education they provide is also of a high standard. Taking a pinnacle position, at all levels in Catholic educational provision is the ‘religious mission’ and subordinate to this is the ‘academic mission’; and combined the two missions form the basis of Catholic schooling globally. However, the two missions of Catholic schooling highlighted above have not remained static over the years in Zambia’s education system due to factors of social change. Consequently, this has specifically led Catholic schools to experience an ‘identity change’ over the years since the attainment of political independence in Zambia (1964).The interplay of issues regarding the situation of Catholic schooling indicated above is centred on social change which determines educational policy directives or provisions culminating in the ‘changed identity of Catholic schools’. Social change factors divert the schools from educational practice as directed by the evolving Catholic education policies over the years. The general purpose of the paper, which utilises research findings from Hambulo’s (2016) study entitled ‘Catholic secondary education and identity reformation in Zambia’s Southern Province,’ is to give a categorical articulation of how factors of social change in the Zambian setting have influenced education policy directives, leading to the ‘changed identity’ of particularly Catholic secondary schools in Zambia’s Southern Province since 1964. Keywords: academic; education; Catholic; mission; policy; religious Opsomming Die Katolieke Kerk het nog altyd bewys dat hy wêreldwyd ’n baie betroubare en geloofwaardige vennoot vir verskeie regerings is wat betref onderwysvoorsiening deur middel van Katolieke onderwysinstellings op alle onderwysvlakke. Afgesien van hierdie onderwysinstellings se bydrae wêreldwyd tot onderwysvoorsiening op alle onderwysvlakke, is die onderrig wat die Kerk bied ook van ’n hoogstaande standaard. By Katolieke onderwysvoorsiening is die “godsdienstige missie”, en ondergeskik hieraan die “akademiese missie”, op alle vlakke belangrik; en as hierdie twee missies gekombineer word, vorm dit die wêreldwye basis van Katolieke onderrig. In Zambië se onderwysstelsel het die twee missies van Katolieke onderwys wat hier bo genoem word, met die verloop van tyd egter nie staties gebly nie ‒ vanweë faktore van sosiale verandering. As gevolg van hierdie faktore en sedert Zambië politieke onafhanklikheid (1964) bereik het, het Katolieke skole oor die jare ’n “identiteitsverandering" ondergaan. Die interaksie tussen kwessies rakende die situasie van Katolieke onderwys wat hier bo genoem word, sentreer op sosiale verandering wat die onderwysbeleidsriglyne of -voorskrifte bepaal, wat gelei het tot die “veranderde identiteit van Katolieke skole”. Sosiale veranderingsfaktore het die skole weggelei van onderwyspraktyke soos bepaal deur die ontwikkelende Katolieke onderwysbeleid deur die jare. Die hoofdoel van hierdie artikel, wat die navorsingsbevindings van Hambulo (2016) se studie, “Catholic secondary education and identity reformation in Zambia’s Southern Province” gebruik, is om kategoriese artikulasie te bied van hoe faktore van sosiale verandering sedert 1964 in die Zambiese opset die onderwysbeleidsriglyne beïnvloed het en gelei het tot die “veranderde identiteit” van Katolieke sekondêre skole in Zambië se Suidelike Provinsie in die besonder. Sleutelwoorde: akademies; onderwys; Katoliek; missie; beleid; godsdienstig

Convent Schooling for English Girls in the ‘Exile’ Period, 1600–1800

Following the Reformation, Catholic families seeking to educate both sons and daughters in their faith faced many challenges. The penal laws proscribed the creation of Catholic schools in England and forbade parents to send children abroad for education. However, such was the determination to provide Catholic schooling that families were prepared to break the laws and meet the expense of fees and travel. The convents established schools for several reasons. For some orders it was part of their religious purpose to educate girls, others saw it as a means of educating future members, and all needed to secure their convents financially and be self-sufficient. Schooling provided varied significantly. This article, drawing mainly on manuscript sources from convents and some of the families with daughters attending convent schools, considers the scope of the provision of girls' education in the ‘exile’ period and offers some preliminary insights into the experience of pupils.