ABSTRACT

This book brings together the work of eleven leading international scholars to map the contribution of teaching Sisters, who provided schooling to hundreds of thousands of children, globally, from 1800 to 1950. The volume represents research that draws on several theoretical approaches and methodologies. It engages with feminist discourses, social history, oral history, visual culture, post-colonial studies and the concept of transnationalism, to provide new insights into the work of Sisters in education.

Making a unique contribution to the field, chapters offer an interrogation of historical sources as well as fresh interpretations of findings, challenging assumptions. Compelling narratives from the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Africa, Australia, South East Asia, France, the UK, Italy and Ireland contribute to what is a most important exploration of the contribution of the women religious by mapping and contextualizing their work.

Education, Identity and Women Religious, 1800–1950: Convents, classrooms and colleges will appeal to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of social history, women’s history, the history of education, Catholic education, gender studies and international education.

chapter |5 pages

Introduction

chapter Chapter 1|25 pages

Coming to an edge in history

Writing the history of women religious and the critique of feminism 1

chapter Chapter 2|12 pages

From Kerry to Katong

Transnational influences in convent and novitiate life for the Sisters of the Infant Jesus, c. 1908–1950

chapter Chapter 5|22 pages

Sisters as teachers in nineteenth-century Ireland

The Presentation Order

chapter Chapter 7|18 pages

‘Have your children got leave to speak?'

The teacher training of New Zealand Dominican Sisters, 1871–1965

chapter Chapter 8|25 pages

Great changes, increased demands

Education, teacher training and the Irish Presentation Sisters

chapter Chapter 9|23 pages

The situational dimension of the educational apostolate and the configuration of the learner as a cultural and political subject

The case of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions in the Canadian Prairies 1

chapter Chapter 10|16 pages

A path to perfection

Translations from French by Catholic women religious in nineteenth-century Ireland

chapter Chapter 11|16 pages

Loreto education in Australia

The pioneering influence of Mother Gonzaga Barry