History Commons^™

Educating Wards Of The State: Gender-Based Vocational Curriculum In Jamaican Industrial Schools 1890 – 1940, Shani Roper

Summer Workshop on the Comparative History of School Accountability

Throughout the late nineteenth century, the Jamaican colonial government along with several religious institutions established a small network of Industrial Schools as well as a Reformatory to house criminal, destitute, and displaced juveniles. Advocates of the industrial school system argued that the goal of an industrial school education was to create good colonial citizens. A gender- based vocational oriented curriculum was promoted on the grounds that such an education enforced values of self-sufficiency and thrift. This curriculum differentiated industrial schools from its counterparts in the general education system. The main goal of school administrators was to re-socialize children to become …