Views on Race and Gender in Roman Catholic Girls’ Education: A Case Study of Embakwe ‘Coloured’ School Experiment, 1922-1965

Abstract

This paper demonstrates how this specially designed education system which fell within a broader framework of a racially segregated education system, was crafted in such a way as to make the Coloured people take specific roles in a racially segregated colonial society. At Embakwe, gender as a social category was constructed side-by-side with that of race, both categories being indispensable to the colonial order. The extent to which ‘coloured’ girls at Embakwe were agents in shaping female ‘coloured’ identity within the colonial context, as well as their agency in resisting the colonial and missionary design to ‘emancipate’ the ‘coloured’ children by separating them from their mothers permanently is discussed. The colonial mastery failed to undo the effects of racial separation as evidenced in coloureds reconnecting with their African mothers.