L'Éducation f'éminine au Congo belge

• Autores: Pierre Kita Masandi
• Localización: Paedagogica Historica: International journal of the history of education, ISSN 0030-9230, Vol. 40, Nº. 4, 2004, págs. 479-508
• Idioma: francés
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• Resumen

  • The most widespread opinion about the education of the Congolese woman and her participation in modern life throughout the colonial era is a fairly negative one. In this article the author would like to grasp the philosophy and mechanisms of schooling and education for indigenous women. In the evolutions that are highlighted he would also like to distinguish between the elements that remained constant on the one hand and the really significant progress on the other.

    The colonisation of Congolese society marginalised women. The specificity of female schooling was situated in the cultivation of this marginalisation and its maintenance enabled by use of ideology. At the same time, schooling also claimed to integrate women into modernity as it was defined by the civilisation project of colonisation. The weakness of the results in this domain was a consequence of two converging factors: the inherent logic of colonialism and the Belgian model of conservative Catholicism. In fact, Belgian colonisation installed a structure that could not but smother female development. It sustained a fundamental contradiction, at the same time wanting to reach a certain goal but creating the conditions for its opposite. Nevertheless, during the last decade of colonisation a proper dynamic was introduced that wouldprogressively free Congolese girls from the entirely utilitarian concept of education and schooling in which they were trapped, and that would open up new educational and social perspectives.