Abstract
Building on the historical and cultural roots of colonialism described in Chapter 2, Chapter 3 more fully explores the ways that biased and often racist notions of difference that have entered into the classroom through forms of official and unofficial curriculum. Western patriarchal structures that supported colonialism and other forms of domination have also created the official state schooling system and curriculum for both the colonizers and the colonized. Colonial schools were constructed in order to distribute the official knowledge of empire; access to education and the language of power were controlled by administrations that were generally wary of resistance and revolt. Some European women traveled to the colonies as missionaries and educators and played a role in the establishment of limited schooling for girls. The colonial system of education officially ended with independence movements of the twentieth century; however, much of the knowledge created and legitimized during that period are still reverberating in official and unofficial forms of contemporary education. The interests of the dominant culture created distorted images of women, the so-called third world, the primitive, savage, and irrational Other and reproduces these images through education.
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Jones, R.B. (2011). Distorted Visions: Ethnocentric Forms of Education. In: Postcolonial Representations of Women. Explorations of Educational Purpose, vol 18. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1551-6_4
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