ABSTRACT
The Norwegian mission was an important actor among Protestant missions in Madagascar. Protestants had a common interest in their aim of transmitting religious literacies. The arrival of the colonial power gave Malagasies an opportunity to learn to read and write without going through the missions’ religious literacies. The literacies that the colonial power brought were defined by a European perspective and were based on French Republican values. The Norwegian mission’s physical and institutional spaces for school literacy aimed at Malagasy children and youth included Sunday, bush, primary and secondary schools. School literacy practices in Sunday schools prepared children for, and even encouraged some of them to join a school. The literature that the mission published is a significant factor in explaining what kind of literacies the mission promoted. Disseminating religious and secular literature in Malagasy was an important strategy in the mission’s literacy work.
