Contested classrooms: cultural control and resistance in Alsace and Algeria, 1918-1940
Date
2010-02-16T20:31:09Z
Authors
Magrath, Bronwen Alexandra
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Abstract
France's Third Republic, which was in place from 1871 to 1940, saw the establishment of the nation's first state-run primary school system. This school system was far from politically neutral: it was designed to strengthen the Republic by wresting control of education away from religious orders and by encouraging the use of a universalized French language. The implementation of French education encountered significant resistance in rural provinces and overseas colonies, where linguistic and religious traditions clashed with the secularizing and universalizing tendencies of Republican France. This thesis explores how education was imposed and resisted through a case-study analysis of French schooling in Alsace and Algeria between 1918 and 1940. The experience in colony and metropole are examined on the same plane, in order to see how France sought to control the cultural identity of its citizens and subjects and how local populations in both locations resisted this imposition.
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education and state, France, Alsace, Algeria