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In light of the debates on the "feminisation of religion" that have animated historiography, during the Restoration one can distinguish two educational strategies towards the education of women. On the one hand, we can make out a symbolic system in which women, whether religious or married, fulfilled values that the male part of society seemed to deny or have forgotten. The same period, especially through the social action of the new religious congregations, saw an activity and a visibility that could not be attributed to a political dimension, but rather to a pre-political one. The relationship between women and the sacred conferred legitimacy on the reclusion of women, that is, the need for a confinement which constituted the physical and symbolic element of the continuity between the education given in monastic institutions and that of many nineteenth-century boarding schools for young women. Women's action outside the classroom belonged more to the sphere of the symbolic than to that of the useful, and, in any case, were founded on an essentially individual type of relationship.

This research aimed to (1) create a charism model for personnel administration of school under the 'Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Apparition' in Thailand, in order to increase the commitment of personnel to the organization, and (2) demonstrate and improve the charism model. The research process was divided into three steps as follows: (1) developing a charism model, (2) demonstrating the model, and 3) enhancing the model. The findings revealed that the charism model for personnel management consisted of two factors. The first factor (charism) included (1) Agape Love, (2) Humility, (3) Altruism, (4) Vision, (5) Trust, (6) Service, and (7) Empowering. The second factor (personnel management) included (1) Planning, Recruitment and Positioning, (2) Promotion, Absence and Evaluation, (3) Performance, (4) Disciplinary Work and History Registration, (5) Code of Professional Ethics, and (6) Other Tasks Assignment. The researcher also developed a charism-based integrated personnel management manual for Saint Emilie school. The demonstration of the results revealed that lecturers and staff were satisfied with personnel management at the highest level. As the researcher considered each variable, the operational aspect had the highest average score, whereas salary, promotion, taking leave and evaluation had the lowest score. The six dimensions of the charism model for improving personnel administration were adjusted accordingly.

This article discusses oral history sources that give insight into how a specific group of teaching sisters (also known as nuns or women religious) reflect on their primary identity as vowed women, and their professional identity as teachers. Their identity was bound up with the fact that they had taken religious vows, and entered a congregation with a clear charism or identity of its own, and they each had their own understanding of vocation. The article also considers the different ways in which they became involved in education; some did not chose to become teachers, while others had a clear desire to teach. The article also discusses the impact of the changes that followed the Second Vatican Council, and notes how these changes impacted upon some of the women in this study.

This paper examines the historical background of the Assumption Sisters of Eldoret (ASE), its Charism and apostolate and the secondary schools run by the ASE. It seeks to understand how the Sisters deal with discipline and performance in their schools. The paper also looks at the role of ASE in the management of the schools especially in financing, staff development and checking the facilities, how they handle the challenges facing the secondary schools that are run by the Sisters. The paper concludes and gives a way forward on how to improve the running of the schools run by the Assumption Sisters of Eldoret.

This paper examines the management of secondary schools run by the Franciscan Sisters of St. Anna in Kenya. It begins with a brief history of the Congregation from its foundation in Oudenbosch to the time its mission began in Kenya. The guiding principle for Franciscan Sisters of St Anna schools is the Charism and sound traditions of the Congregation. The fostering of quality education and good administration of these schools have helped to inculcate good morals in the learners through Catholic teachings. Many of the schools were founded for the girl child, the vulnerable and the less fortunate in the society, thus echoing the mission of the Sisters; voice to the voiceless. The Sisters work hand-in-hand with Dutch and Kenyan governments to see the schools grow. The schools have a long-standing history of discipline and good morals. The paper highlights the sources of funds for the schools which include Government of Kenya, the Congregation through donors, and the parents. In the management of these schools, the principals see to it that there is; proper management of funds, professional development and motivation of staff for improved performance in learners. Finally, the paper discusses some challenges faced by the school administrators and how to overcome them.

This article examines the historical context of the growth and development of Catholic education in the United States, and the commitment of Catholic colleges and universities -- viewed primarily through the lens of Jesuit Colleges and Universities -- to the professional formation of educators for service in Catholic schools. It is a story of the careful navigation by strangers in a strange land to create an unparalleled system of educational institutions, securing academic recognition through accreditation, and providing service to the K-12 Catholic educational system through the delivery of distinctive professional formation programmes for Catholic school educators. These historical challenges continue to the present day and represent a particular mission-driven service of Catholic higher education to the Catholic Church.

This paper examines how the eco-theology of St Francis of Assisi is translated into practice in Franciscan schools in Jakarta, Indonesia. We also investigate if the environmental conclusions of the Pope's Encyclical, "Laudato Si'," are understood by students. An ethnographic approach, using participant observation, interviews and focus group discussions with the friars and nuns, teachers and students, was used. We found that Franciscan religious practise Francis's teachings, but it is difficult to bridge the gap between his teachings and the contemporary context. Students generally identify as environmentalists and respect the environment, but their environmental practice is highly dependent on home life. Both schools and students have to contend with a broader socio-economic context which is pro-Development, with scant regard for the environment. Student understanding of complex global environmental problems, and their causes, is minimal. Nevertheless, we argue the relevance of St Francis's eco-theology in a world searching for environmental sustainability.

This article examines the lived experiences of teachers who were either lay volunteers or Sister missionaries, working in education and health care. The research draws on oral histories, examining the responses of participants under a series of thematic headings that unpack the influence of family life, schooling and faith, while also exploring experience 'in the field'. The article attempts to compare the responses of lay women with Sisters (also sometimes known as nuns, or women religious), and finds that there were some factors that distinguished between the experiences of these two cohorts involved in voluntary work in education and health care in African countries, in the period under review.

Historically, patriarchy has been as dominant in education in Ireland as elsewhere. In the Irish context, it was promoted through the male-dominated Catholic Church, which controlled either directly or indirectly the vast majority of education institutions in the country. This dominant hegemony was most powerful during the period post-Independence, achieved in 1922, and up until the 1960s. By the 1960s, however, Irish society had begun a process of self-reflection and modernisation triggered by exposure to international ideas, the Second Vatican Council, the democratisation of education and radical changes in economic policy. This article focuses on one manifestation of this process, namely a strike initiated by female students at a female-run teacher training college in Dublin in demand of a greater voice in the nature of the curriculum taught and in the governance of the college. However, these women were protesting not against the male hegemony, rather against the women religious who perpetrated this hegemony. The focus of this study is thus on patriarchy perpetuated by women on women.

Based on the oral history testimonies of Sister-teachers, this study provides an insight into the impact of the Free Education Scheme (1967) on the lives of women religious in Ireland. This major initiative was generated and driven by men; however, it had a direct impact on the professional lives of thousands of women who ran schools. The article outlines the development of Irish convent schools as a form of 'voluntary secondary schooling' and the roles performed by women religious (nuns). It then considers the impact of the Free Education Scheme on convent schooling and how Sister teachers and Sister principals responded and adapted to these changes and increased demands. The article draws on oral history accounts, in which women religious articulate their own thoughts on this period of dramatic change in their lives as educators.

Willa Cather wrote "Death Comes for the Archbishop" and "Shadows on the Rock" based on the missionary life of Europeans in Quebec and New Mexico. In both novels she depicts a different type of colonizer-colonized relationship. The colonizers arrive with their stereotypical views about the natives to purportedly civilize them. But later, through their interaction with the natives, their superior, patronizing attitude gradually changes, so that, the boundary between the colonizer and the colonized becomes blurred. Contrary to their presuppositions about natives and also the long-established colonial attitude, the missionaries in these two novels treat the natives sympathetically and in some cases equally. Using Homi Bhabha's theory of hybridity, this essay attempts to analyze these two novels in terms of the depiction of cultural relation/interaction.

The long-taught history of social work may be missing an important part of its root system. Groups of religious sisters were doing work similar to early English settlement houses years before Toynbee Hall, yet were left out of the history possibly due to their gender, religion, and ethnicity. Using original historic writings and illustrations, this article looks at the early work of women religious -- the preferred name for vowed religious women of various faiths -- and how they may have had a direct influence on the work of early settlements, an influence not included in social welfare history. The authors call for a social justice response by adding the work of women religious to social welfare history.

This paper provides an overview of virtue development in the training of Catholic Sisters in Africa and showcases how virtue attainment positions them to be exceptional leaders that promote advances in the state of education in Africa. Additionally, the authors briefly discuss the role of the African Sisters Education Collaborative (ASEC), an international nonprofit organization, in the strengthening of this population's leadership abilities. Three success stories are presented which demonstrate how the education-related work of Catholic Sisters in Africa across traditional and nontraditional settings, is catalyzing positive change in communities and contributing to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa.

This article, emerging from a wider study on the professional development needs of women teachers working in Catholic convent schools in the Republic of Pakistan, explores the perspectives and experiences of school leaders and Principals who developed professional development programmes. This area, which has been under-researched in the professional development literature, addresses the complexities and contradictions that the glocalisation of professional development can create for women teachers in developing world contexts. A social realist approach, using Archer's morphogenetic framework, was employed to facilitate an exploration of the varied responses that professional development needs produce. The responses of former Principals and school leaders and their efforts to provide professional development for women teachers was captured, and revealed different agential responses. These responses included an acceptance of the realities of the education system in Pakistan and the role of women in that context, a desire to follow the ethos of the Catholic religious Order which was at variance with accepted educational praxis, and the changing expectations of society within Pakistan with reference to education of children.

From the mid-1960s, the teaching force in Catholic schools in Ireland that for so long had been composed primarily of members of religious orders began to change as a large number returned to the secular world and recruitment levels dropped rapidly. Concurrently there was an outpouring of order-focused hagiographic works. During the 1980s, a range of related publications by professional historians also appeared. These included books by a group of secular historians and books by those who can be termed religious historians. This paper is a critical review of key works by key scholars in each group. An underlying assumption is that while for the first group the prospering popular religious atmosphere of the period studied and the work of the female religious as part of it constituted a phenomenon to be understood, for the second group this atmosphere and work largely constituted a 'natural' state of affairs.

The article presents examples of early childhood education as a form of Catholic pedagogy in Africa and South America. The presentation is based on interviews with 20 Sisters Servants, who initiated and continue the endeavour of Catholic child education as part of their mission. The illustrative part of the article is preceded by an exposition of the underpinnings and functions of Catholic pedagogy. Selected theoretical aspects are juxtaposed against a set of case studies, in order to highlight the validity, specificity, universalism and effectiveness of the approach. Our analysis of the interviews offers an insight into the sisters' perception of the essence of early childhood education. This educational approach is anchored in Bojanowski's conception of Catholic pedagogy, and finds its contemporary implementation in diverse socio-cultural and religious contexts. The article ends with a conclusion on the need to undertake further research in the neglected field of early childhood education, which will allow re-envisioning it for contemporary educational benefits. The research is necessary to expand the theoretical foundations of early childhood education and allow innovation in the related pedagogical practice.

This article examines some of the legacy of the Irish education pioneer Nano Nagle, foundress of the Presentation congregation of nuns. The congregation spread rapidly in the nineteenth century, not only in Ireland but also in Newfoundland, India, England, Tasmania, Australia and continental North America. This year, Presentation schools globally mark the tercentenary of Nagle's birth, and it is therefore timely to consider approaches to writing about her life and her contribution to education. The article discusses existing biographical studies of Nagle and argues that a more nuanced study of this educator and her legacy is possible, through the careful and systematic use of convent archives and oral histories. The article considers how such research can offer new perspectives on the agency and innovation of individual teaching Sisters, and on ways in which these women became resilient and adaptable, in order to function effectively within a patriarchal Church.

In the early twentieth century in the United States, Roman Catholic schools grew in number and became increasingly regulated by state departments of education. This led to the increased influence of public school reform movements in Catholic schools. Some Catholic educators questioned these movements, while others embraced them. Educational measurement strategies, such as IQ and standardised testing, gained support from women religious orders and congregations, who made up the majority of the Catholic teaching force. For pragmatic reasons, they saw some value in the promises of modern educational science for teaching and learning. This practice, however, put them at odds with some of the beliefs and values of their Church. This study demonstrates how Catholic sister teachers attempted to shape the debate on the introduction and use of reform strategies like IQ and standardised testing. It also examines how Catholic sister teachers made use of Catholic beliefs and values to make arguments in favour of IQ and standardised testing in Catholic schools. Using agreed upon Catholic religious tenets and working within their gendered reality, Catholic sister teachers demonstrated how they tried to convince their colleagues, male and female, to come to an understanding around the use of educational measurement.

The French Revolution bears an ironic responsibility for generating works of charity. To counteract the devastating social effects of that late 18th century uprising, numerous religious communities were founded in France, among them the Congregation of Holy Cross. The Congregation of Holy Cross, the founding religious community behind the University of Notre Dame, had its origin in the ranks of diocesan clergy in France. This article chronicles the early history of the congregation, struggles between priests and its brothers, and its movement into the ministry of Catholic education.

The quest for state and federal aid for Catholic schools is not new. Concerns regarding excessive entanglement, mission dilution, and external control have been voiced for decades. A particularly instructive historical period on this issue is the era of the Great Depression. Because of widespread economic hardship across sectors, Catholic leaders were active and engaged in the politics of federal and state aid for schools and experienced both success and failure.

In 1897, four French Franciscan sisters arrived in Ethiopia, having been summoned there by the Capuchin missionaries. In 1925, they ran an orphanage, a dispensary, a leper colony and 10 schools with 350 girl students. The students were freed slaves, orphans and upper-class Ethiopian and European girls. After providing a brief background to the relations between the Ethiopian government and the missionaries, this article describes the general activities of the Sisters, the importance they dedicated to education, and their religious and political motives. In the second part, it analyses the sociological backgrounds of the female students and the way in which education intersected with gender, class and race. Third, it reconstructs the multiple power relations within which the Sisters' educational work was embedded. Finally, it demonstrates how schooling girls in a class-based manner--in conformity with the Franciscan Sisters' perceptions about what lower-class and upper-class women should be--enabled them to secure relations with Ethiopian political elites. These relations both benefited the Ethiopian elites and furthered the cause of French imperialism.

The Word of God is 'the true light that enlightens everyone who comes into the world' and is the driving force behind the charism of the Immaculate Heart Sisters (IHM). Charles Heerey wanted the Sisters to be 'the fairest of the children of God'. Their life must be modelled on Jesus Christ, the great teacher and master to humanity. In view of this mandate given to them by their founder, this paper sets out to discuss the education mission of the IHM Sisters in Nigeria, their contributions to the mission of educating the people of God in the Church, their prospects and challenges. Hence, the Sisters strive to bring about holistic and total transformation to every child.

This paper highlights the need for studies to be undertaken on Irish women who became 'female religious' in Roman Catholic religious communities and who taught in Australian schools up until 1922. The paper is structured in three parts. It opens by outlining the international context that gave rise to the existence of these personnel in Australia. The more specific background is then sketched out. A broad overview of the literature on the distinct group of teachers in Australia in question follows and the fact that the current research base on them is somewhat unwieldy and disjointed is highlighted. This contention in turn, it is argued, indicates the need for engagement in a major research programme which takes a macro perspective on Irish female religious as teachers in Australia.

The case of a gifted and talented Catholic Dominican nun is described and analysed in the context of Renzulli's Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness and Gagne's Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent. Using qualitative methods, semi-structured interviews of relevant individuals were conducted and analysed. Based on the conclusions of this analysis, which demonstrate the importance of environmental and intrapersonal catalysts, some general observations have been drawn that may support specific adaptations to the educational process for gifted and talented individuals.

This paper discusses the contributions of the Dominican Sisters and Sisters of Mercy in running schools for female deaf children in Ireland during the period 1846 to 1946. The schools were established as part of an attempt to educate Catholics in the Catholic faith and provide literacy to female deaf children. In assuming the challenge of educating deaf girls, the sisters adopted a method of teaching and learning through signed language of which they had little prior knowledge. While the history of the schools is contextualised as a central narrative of this paper, the religious orders' attempt to educate deaf children effectively is examined in the context of teacher role models and sign language pedagogy. This paper argues that the work of the Mercy and Dominican sisters should be recognised for its contribution to the education of female deaf children, whose needs would otherwise have been neglected.

This article examines the management of the education enterprise of teaching Sisters, with reference to their transnational networking. The article suggests that orders of women religious were the first all-female transnational networks, engaged constantly in work that was characterised by "movement, ebb and circulation". The mobility of teaching Sisters is framed within a discussion of three interconnected features of their global networking: the management of transnational recruitment networks, the advantageous use of international travel networks, and the movement of resources around the world. The article draws on sources from convent archives in Europe, Australia, Canada and the USA that throw light on the transnational networking of women religious around the world.

Irish Catholic teaching sisters were major actors in the development of education systems in New World countries such as the United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Immigrants themselves, they faced a number of key challenges as they sought to adapt Old World cultural and educational ideas to the education of the immigrant Irish in a new cultural, religious and educational context. A close examination of the wide range of sources available in private archives and elsewhere offers unique insights into the challenges facing 10 Irish Dominican Sister Teachers as they journeyed from Ireland to Dunedin to found primary and secondary schools in the young colony of New Zealand. This article examines their responses to their early experiences and the part they played in the development of a viable Catholic education system in nineteenth-century New Zealand.

This paper builds on recent scholarship on the gendered nature of educational work to argue that while conceptualisations of the principalship are underpinned by scholarship and policy assumptions that construct the work of the principal as a male domain, women have responded to opportunities presented by changing historical, political and social contexts, creating professional spaces for themselves as principals in primary and secondary schools within both state and Catholic school systems. It details how in the years prior to 1975, a time when the majority of state primary and secondary schools were led by men, the principalship of New Zealand Catholic schools was a largely female endeavour. The experience of Catholic Sister Principals was framed by the fact that they were women leading schools in a world dominated by men. Implicit in this arrangement were the ecclesiastical authority structures and their subjection to the convent hierarchy. Nevertheless, Sister Principals learned a range of strategies that enabled them to negotiate with Church and religious authorities and to undertake the diverse tasks associated with the leadership of Catholic schools.

Seamus Heaney (like Stimpson and Parker in this issue) speaks of: "A historic dialectic [which] exists between the beautiful and the bestial". In this speech, delivered on 13 December 2012, Njabulo Ndebele reflects on the stories South Africa tells itself about past atrocity, as a way of achieving "the future we have desired". Ndebele informs that the telling of the story of the killing of Sister Quinlan in the classroom would have been considered by the state as a subversive act. His impression is that the story of Sister Quinlan has most probably not been told at any school since 1994, when telling it would not only be permitted but would also be considered a necessary act of citizenship. The author asks: If the official curriculum of the time of his upbringing would never allow the telling of the story of Sister Quinlan, why are they not telling her story in their schools today?

Seamus Heaney talked of poetry's responsibility to represent the "bloody miracle", the "terrible beauty" of atrocity; to create "something adequate". This article asks, what is adequate to the burning and eating of a nun and the murderous gang rape and evisceration of a medical student? It considers Njabulo Ndebele's answer: the retelling of the story in the service of "love and politics", and that of the South African playwright, Yael Farber, who workshopped and then performed experiences of terrible, disfiguring violence against women. It asks what Humanities disciplinary writing would be "something adequate": something that raises "critical consciousness" in the terms Heaney claimed in his Nobel Lecture "Crediting Poetry", that illuminates and appreciates rather than contributes to an anaesthetising "culture of suspicion", that re-presents adequate--discipline-specific, singular, particular, poetic--truth.

Educational institutions are increasingly encouraging faculty to design classroom projects that take learning outside the ivory tower and into the real world. An emphasis is placed on engaging both students and community partners in a mutually beneficial project that fosters a life-long commitment to actively helping the community and people in need. This article describes an engaged learning activity utilized in an adult development psychology class. Results indicate that having the engaged learning component significantly improves students' participation in the class content. The focus is on the logistics of the project, inherent benefits to the students, and practical implications.

This article examines the biographies and personal records of nineteenth-century Catholic nuns who worked in education, with a view to determining how they reconciled their individuality with the demands of religious life. Their resistance to rules, and the ways in which they wrestled with the vow of obedience, is examined. The roles of the Novice Mistress and the Superior in teaching and managing the members of their religious communities are explored, with particular reference to three orders of women religious.

A body of scholarship on the history of the lives of Catholic teaching sisters has thrown up various challenges to educational historians. One challenge can be posed by asking how teaching sisters were able to go on to take up leadership positions. This is prompted by the observation that a particular body of literature for the period 1940-1965 indicating that they underwent a strict "formation" regimen intended to prepare them for total obedience to their superiors, inculcate in them a non-questioning attitude and deprive them of opportunities to take initiative, how then were they able to go on to take up leadership positions? The paper outlines the results of an oral history project which addressed this apparent paradox in the case of a group of women who worked as sister principals in Ireland. The results suggest they had a significant amount of freedom and room for questioning and initiative, and that this stood them in good stead when they went on to become sister principals.

Katharine Drexel was an important educator who taught profound lessons to the Roman Catholic Church and American society about the responsibility of privilege and the irresponsibility of prejudice. As a professed nun dedicated to the education of Black and Native Americans, she taught both intentionally and by example. Religious educators, seeking to educate for peace and justice, often point to Katharine's life work as an example of the application of Catholic social teaching. This article argues that Katharine's educational import in regards to Catholic social teaching goes much deeper than the concrete examples of her life's work. By studying Katharine's life, religious educators can illustrate the foundational attitudes and habits necessary for the principle of social justice to take root. This will be articulated in terms of underlying emphases found in aspects of Katharine's story: emphasis on totality, on clarity of vision and purpose, on evangelization, on family ethical formation, on moral education, and on Eucharistic spirituality. A corresponding action for religious educators will be suggested.