Schooling the Mind – In the Metropole and the Colony

Chapter 2 ‘Schooling the Mind – In the Metropole and the Colony’ examines the ‘mutually constitutive’ history of ideas and debates on education in 18^th and 19^th century Britain and India. By analysing the complex social and psychological processes involved in schooling, it seeks to reveal the political and ideological similarities and differences in the ideas behind schooling the white child and schooling the colonised. It is argued that schooling with its insinuated implications of rigid disciplining and punishment, often became a potent site to establish ‘differences’ and inequalities both in the metropole and the colonies.