Pedagogical encounters and exchanges between indigenous and missionaries’ children in the mission field, 1790-1870
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Martin, Mary Clare 
ORCID: 0000-0002-3568-6423
(2019)
Pedagogical encounters and exchanges between indigenous and missionaries’ children in the mission field, 1790-1870.
In: Encounters and Exchanges, Society for the History of Childhood and Youth Biennial Conference, 26-29 Jun 2019, Sydney, Australia.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
Facilitating the reading of the Bible and communicating conventions of worship and prayer were central to the overseas Christian missionary project in the nineteenth century. Yet few have examined the pedagogy of these processes in the context of interactions between European missionaries and Indigenous children. Recent historians’ claims that missions were unsuccessful contrast with missionary accounts of hundreds of Indigenous children being able to recite long passages from the Bible, as well as being active participants in public worship, in Jamaica, New Zealand, parts of India, Africa and the South Pacific. This paper will analyse the processes for teaching Indigenous children to read the Bible, to pray, and to engage in public worship in selected contexts with missionaries from societies founded in Britain between 1790 to 1870. Whilst acknowledging that the evidence is mainly refracted through the eyes of overseas missionaries, it will draw on contemporary evidence of pedagogical strategies through the manuscript letters as well as published memoirs. It will also examine evidence of missionaries’ children being taught by Indigenous people, and the work of “native agents” as local instructors. As such, the paper explores a significant aspect of world Christianity.
| Item Type: | Conference or Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | The paper was presented as part of a panel, organised by myself, entitled, "Religious community, childhood and cross-cultural exchange, 1680-1980". |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | pedagogical exchanges, missionaries, indigenous, children, Bible |
| Subjects: | D History General and Old World > D History (General) |
| Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group: | Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences > School of Humanities & Social Sciences (HSS) Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences > Centre for Applied Sociology Research (CASR) |
| Related URLs: | |
| Last Modified: | 03 Nov 2021 00:21 |
| URI: | http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/25975 |
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