Missions, Education and Conversion in Colonial Africa

Abstract

This chapter traces the origins and long-term development of African mass-education in colonial sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, it addresses the unique role of Christian missions in prompting a genuine schooling revolution and explores the comparative educational expansion across colonies and between genders. While the initial expansion of missions was motivated by a global competition for new church members, the development of African mass-education essentially depended on local conditions. It highlights the importance of African agency in the process towards mass-education that depended on local demand for formal education and the supply of African teachers who provided the bulk of mission schooling. The chapter also assesses potential pitfalls when those realities are not considered by studies, investigating historical missionary legacies on present-day African education and social mobility.

Educational Gender Inequality in Sub‐Saharan Africa: A Long‐Term Perspective

“…Christian missions provided the bulk of formal education in colonial Africa, particularly in British colonies and especially before the 1930s (Frankema 2012;Meier zu Selhausen 2019). Various studies have observed substantial positive effects on local contemporary educational outcomes of missionary activities during early colonial times (Gallego and Woodberry 2010;Wantchekon, Klasnja, and Novta 2015;Jedwab, Meier zu Selhausen, and Moradi 2019;Alesina et al 2021;Cappelli and Baten 2021).…”

Inequality of education in colonial Ghana: European influences and African responses

“…11 Chiefs and native authorities also established and administered 'national' or 'state' schools receiving government assistance, while rich Africans began to establish private schools in urban areas (George 1976, 31). 12 Further, like elsewhere in colonial Africa, African missionaries and teachers were the main agents of educational expansion in colonial Ghana (Foster 1965;Frankema 2012;Meier zu Selhausen 2019).…”

Why Africa is not that poor

“…14 Such questions have, amongst others, been explored with respect to legal origins (Lange 2004), colonial investments (Huillery 2009(Huillery , 2011 and the supply of (missionary) education (Bolt and Bezemer 2009, Gallego and Woodberry 2010, Nunn 2010, Cogneau and Moradi 2014, Dupraz 2019. Revisionist studies have highlighted how missionary movements have been misrepresented as a 'European' or 'colonial' legacy, as various scholars have ignored the momentous importance of the Africanization of the mission in terms of initiative, labour input, spatial diffusion and the maintenance of mission schools (Frankema 2012, Meier zu Selhausen 2019, Jedwab et al 2019. Questions regarding the role and interaction of endogenous and exogenous forces also play a major role in studies on the development of colonial fiscal regimes: how extensive was the political control of colonial regimes, and what were the countervailing powers or conditions that limited the arm of the state?…”

“…5 The persistence studies as such have been criticized from many sidesand not just by professional historians. Comments have been made on the reliability, validity and uncritical use of historical data (Albouy 2009, Jerven 2013, Meier zu Selhausen 2019, on estimation methods and specifications (Cogneau and Dupraz 2014, Bickenbach et al 2016, Kelly 2019, on conceptual issues related to the 'compression of history' (Austin 2008a, Jerven 2015 and eurocentric bias (Austin 2007, Bayly 2008, Frankema et al 2016. Voices have also been raised against the historical determinism inherent to persistence studies and their neglect of fundamental patterns of change in Africa and beyond (Jerven 2010, Frankema and van Waijenburg 2012, Banerjee and Duflo 2014, Arroyo Abad and Maurer 2019.…”