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"If You Can Educate The Native Woman...": Debates Over The Schooling And Education Of Girls And Women In Southern Rhodesia, 1900-1934, Carol Summers

History Faculty Publications

As the turn of the century, European settlers, officials, and missionaries in Southern Rhodesia were apathetic about promoting African girls' schooling. By the late 1920s, however, all sectors of the European community-settlers, officials, and missionaries- were debating whether, and for what reasons, girls should attend mission schools.¹ Europeans discussed girls' and women's schooling as a strategy for coping with problems in the social and economic development of the region. Some Native Commissioners hope that disciplined moral education would encourage women to remain in rural areas and take responsibility for their families, supporting the system of migrant labor. Many missionaries …