This paper explores the American Girl book series and its relation to the history of American education and the school's role in the creation of the ideal American girl. Focused on the Kirsten Larson series of American Girl books, this paper explores how the settler grammars that characterize Kirsten's encounters with an "Indian girl"…

A long tradition of both State and religious interest and support characterised provision for education on the island of Ireland from the 1700s. Following the partition of Ireland in the 1920s, the newly created political entities of the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland forged separate and distinct education policy trajectories that largely…

This paper explores the process of negotiation, lobbying and parliamentary debate that brought the Irish universities legislation into being in the early 1900s against a backdrop of political and religious conflict. The complex interaction between British ministers and Catholic bishops before and throughout the legislative process dictated the…

The debates surrounding the reform of national education in Britain and Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century were often framed as a binary struggle between the religious establishment, which sought to retain control of the national schools, and dissenters who viewed education reform as an important step towards dismantling the state churches'…

American Protestants serving overseas must learn their host communities' "heart" language from the twin moral imperative to minimize their burden on host partners and to embody their faith through their language practice. Language learning thus has moral consequences; not merely proficiency attainment, but faithfulness and calling are at…

Professional ideals arise from personal worldviews and specify teachers' professional identities. This study aimed to explore how faith is present in the professional ideals of Christian teachers. The professional ideals of 107 Dutch teachers from conservative Protestant primary and secondary schools were explored using an open-ended…

A vast amount of literature addresses issues surrounding English and French in colonial and post-colonial communities. However, relative to the spread of English and French language ideology, a limited amount of literature exists on Lusitanization (i.e. the spread of Portuguese colonial ideology by Portugal during colonialism and the role of…

In the Netherlands of the late nineteenth century, primary education became one of the central issues in relation to raising political awareness and mobilising previously quiescent Dutch citizens. Protestants and Catholics alike claimed that Dutch public education left insufficient space for religious education and teamed up to struggle for…

The use of corporal punishment to discipline children remains a perennial focus of controversy. Several studies published in the 1990s linked support for, and use of, corporal punishment with religious factors, particularly core doctrines of conservative (i.e., evangelical and fundamentalist) Protestantism. This study reexamines the relationships…

The Protestant Reformation swept across Central Europe in the early-sixteenth century, leaving cities divided into Evangelical and Catholic camps as some instituted reforms and others remained loyal to the Roman Church. In offering a new explanation of the Reformation, we develop a theory that identifies ideologically mobilized students as bridge…

Switzerland provides an interesting case study for the development of educational policies. As a result of federalism, each state--called a canton--worked out its own school system in relative independence. How can various political and religious environments generate different educational systems according to gender? Which factors promote or…