Connecting Histories of Education: Transnational and Cross-Cultural Exchanges in (Post)Colonial Education

The history of education in the modern world is a history of transnational and cross-cultural influence. This collection explores those influences in (post) colonial and indigenous education across different geographical contexts. The authors emphasize how local actors constructed their own adaptation of colonialism, identity, and autonomy, creating a multi-centric and entangled history of modern education. In both formal as well as informal aspects, they demonstrate that transnational and cross-cultural exchanges in education have been characterized by appropriation, re-contextualization, and hybridization, thereby rejecting traditional notions of colonial education as an export of pre-existing metropolitan educational systems. 

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Connecting Histories of Education: Transnational and Cross-Cultural Exchanges in (Post‑)Colonial Education Barnita Bagchi, Eckhardt Fuchs and Kate Rousmaniere Part 1: Historiographical Reflections Chapter 1. History of Education beyond the Nation? Trends in Historical and Educational Scholarship Eckhardt Fuchs Chapter 2. Contested Pasts: The Concept of Civilization in the Colonial and Nationalist Discourse of Education Sabyasachi Bhattacharya Chapter 3. Writing Histories of Congolese Colonial Education: An Historiographical View from Belgium Marc Depaepe Chapter 4. Range and Limits of the Countryside Schooling Historiography in Latin America (Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries): Some Reflections Alicia Civera Part 2: Travelling Concepts Chapter 5. A Trans-Cultural Transaction: William Carey’s Baptist Mission, the Monitorial Method and the Bengali Renaissance Mary Hilton Chapter 6. A Colonial Experiment in Education: Madras, 1789–1796 Jana Tschurenev Part 3: Indigenous Education and Resistance Chapter 7. A New Education for ‘Young India’: Exploring Nai Talim from the Perspective of a Connected History Simone Holzwarth Chapter 8. Colonial Education and Saami Resistance in Early Modern Sweden Daniel Lindmark Chapter 9. Constructive Orientalism: Debates on Languages and Educational Policies in Colonial India, 1830–1880 Hakim Ikhlef Part 4: Women’s Education Chapter 10. Raden Ajeng Kartini and Cultural Nationalism in Java Joost Coté Chapter 11. Women’s Education through Women’s Eyes: Literary Articulations in Colonial Western India Meera Kosambi Chapter 12. Connecting Literature and History of Education: Analysing the Educative Fiction of Jean Webster and Lila Majumdar Transculturally and Connotatively Barnita Bagchi Chapter 13. Loreto Teaching in India, 1842–2010: Transcending the Centre-Periphery Paradigm Tim Allender Notes on Contributors Index

About the Author :
Barnita Bagchi teaches and researches Comparative Literature at Utrecht University, Netherlands. Her numerous publications include many articles and an edited volume, The Politics of the (Im)possible: Utopia and Dystopia Reconsidered (2012) and a co-edited volume with A.K. Bagchi and D. Sinha, Webs of History: Information, Communication, and Technology from Early to Postcolonial India (2005).

Review :
“…the book is an elegant, well-researched and articulate collection of essays that attempt to take seriously the need to incorporate the transnational as one more dimension of the history of education. This makes it a unique and pioneering work.” · Paedagogica Historica “…builds an essential bridge for future scholarship in educational history.” · Comparative Education Review “…a truly international volume in terms both of its authorship and its contents… With its interdisciplinary intent and desire to evolve fresh understandings of the way ideas are transferred, this book offers much to the scholar and belies many of the more contemporary simplistic understandings of assimilation and cultural integration." · Cambridge Journal of Education “Rarely does a book come along that simultaneously fills lacunae in multiple areas of education research; ambitious in scope Connecting Histories of Education does precisely that… [It] provides nuance to what for too long has been regarded as a one-way relationship, where the colonizers spread their tentacles of influence through the colonized world. While this is likely not the first time this argument has been made, what is novel here is its application to histories of education, and the use of a transnational lens to reflect and refract aspects of this relationship, revealing a multifaceted web of mutual influence. If anything, the work feels like a first step, an overdue contribution to the subfields of education research.” · Historical Studies in Education “…makes a major contribution to the fields of educational, colonial and transnational histories… The introductory and concluding essays draw the book together well. This collection greatly extends our knowledge and approaches and provides a platform for further work. As such it fills a significant gap in a number of fields.” · Joyce Goodman, University of Winchester