From the mid-1960s, the teaching force in Catholic schools in Ireland that for so long had been composed primarily of members of religious orders began to change as a large number returned to the secular world and recruitment levels dropped rapidly. Concurrently there was an outpouring of order-focused hagiographic works. During the 1980s, a range…

This article examines some of the legacy of the Irish education pioneer Nano Nagle, foundress of the Presentation congregation of nuns. The congregation spread rapidly in the nineteenth century, not only in Ireland but also in Newfoundland, India, England, Tasmania, Australia and continental North America. This year, Presentation schools globally…

This article focuses on an underexplored aspect of the Catholic convent school experience, namely the kinds of socialisation and regulation of emotion maintained within the convent community. Drawing on the emerging history of emotions and the concept of emotional communities first posited by Barbara H. Rosenwein, it considers how historians might…

Drawing on archival material and oral testimony of former students, this paper examines the lives and experiences of women in Catholic primary teacher training colleges in Ireland in the period 1922-1974. It commences with a brief overview of the historical context in which these colleges emerged, situating their development within the…

'Christian pyrexia' and 'education fever' have contributed greatly to the empowerment of women in Korea and helped with the transformation of Korean society more broadly. This article begins with an overview of the Confucian gender constructs and delimiting social expectations of women in the pre-modern period. It then focuses on the changing…

In 1897, four French Franciscan sisters arrived in Ethiopia, having been summoned there by the Capuchin missionaries. In 1925, they ran an orphanage, a dispensary, a leper colony and 10 schools with 350 girl students. The students were freed slaves, orphans and upper-class Ethiopian and European girls. After providing a brief background to the…

This paper discusses the contributions of the Dominican Sisters and Sisters of Mercy in running schools for female deaf children in Ireland during the period 1846 to 1946. The schools were established as part of an attempt to educate Catholics in the Catholic faith and provide literacy to female deaf children. In assuming the challenge of…

Catholics remained outside the Scottish educational system until 1918. The Church preferred mixed-sex infant schools and either single-sex schools or separate departments. In small towns and rural areas the schools were mixed-sex. Women were considered naturally best suited to teach infants and girls, but even in boys' schools, female assistants…

Historians have long presented France's "civilizing mission" within its colonies in secular terms ignoring women's presence as both actors and subjects. This is particularly true in Algeria where the colonial government's explicitly prohibited proselytism. This article emphasizes women's roles pursuing both secular and religious goals in…

This article focuses on heroic images of Spanish women in schoolbooks for girls published during the dictatorial regime of General Franco (1939-75). Alongside the female members of Spain's royal ranks and the holy women of the Catholic Church's canon, who were domesticated by association with the needle, some schoolbooks also recovered a small…

Discusses Catholic convent schools in 19th century England. Focuses on a perceived viewpoint that Protestant females would convert to Catholicism if they were taught by Catholic nuns. Considered nuns as substandard teachers using poor curriculum. Concludes anti-Catholicism waned as a strong force during the early 20th century, minimizing criticism…

Focuses on the influences of British Anglican, Catholic, and Wesleyan clergy in elementary schools during latter 19th century. Concludes that Anglican and Catholic clergy affected elementary education far more than Wesleyan clergy did because they who frequently travelled circuits. Wesleyan and Nonconformist schools gave more authority to the…

The movement for the higher education of women in Ireland in the nineteenth century has traditionally been viewed as a Protestant initiative. Scholarship suggests that the Irish campaign developed along the same lines as the English movement, gaining from and growing out of the English advances. Leading Protestant schools for girls have been…

In the first seventy five years of the seventeenth century twenty two enclosed convents for English women were founded in exile where more than 1950 women were professed. In order to lead the strict religious life following the requirements of the Council of Trent for enclosure for women religious, these foundations required specialised buildings…