Connecting Histories of Education

In late March 2014, the book Connecting Histories of Education: Transnational Exchanges and Cross-Cultural Transfers in (Post)-Colonial Education appeared. The collection of essays is co-edited by dr. Barnita Bagchi (assistant professor Comparative Literature).

The history of education in the modern world is a history of transnational and cross-cultural influence. This collection explores those influences in (post-)colonial and indigenous education across different geographical contexts. The authors emphasize how local actors constructed their own adaptation of colonialism, identity, and autonomy, creating a multi-centric and entangled history of modern education. In both formal as well as informal aspects, they demonstrate that transnational and cross-cultural exchanges in education have been characterised by appropriation, re-contextualisation, and hybridisation, thereby rejecting traditional notions of colonial education as an export of pre-existing metropolitan educational systems.