Views on race and gender in roman catholic girls’ education: a case study of Embakwe 'coloured' school experiment, 1922-1965

Abstract

Colonial education created a racially segregated education system with each race accorded education that would fit it in the socially stratified society. The colonial settlers had a European type of education while the black majority received education that demoted them to menial and clerical jobs. The colonial system, however, had to find another educational category within the system for a new ethnic group, the mixed race or 'coloureds', who were the progeny of sexual liaisons between 'white masters’ and their African women servants. This paper demonstrates how this specially designed education system, which fell within a broader framework of a racially segregated education system, was crafted in such a way as to make the coloured people take specific roles in a racially segregated colonial society. At Embakwe, gender as a social category was constructed side-by-side with that of race, both categories being indispensable to the colonial order. The extent to which 'coloured' girls at Embakwe were agents in shaping female 'coloured' identity within the colonial context, as well as their agency in resisting the colonial and missionary design to 'emancipate' the 'coloured' children by separating them from their mothers permanently is discussed. The colonial mastery failed to undo the effects of racial separation as evidenced in Coloureds reconnecting with their African mothers.