PULA Journal of African Studies, vo.1 11 nO.2 (1997) Competing gender ideologies: a conceptual framework for the analysis of education amongst Batswana of Botswana, c.1840-c.1994 Lily Mafe/a Department of Languages and Social Studies Education University of Botswana In both precolonial and Westerm forms of schooling, education was a crucial medium of construction and articulation of ideas concerning the role and behaviour of women. Precolonial education reproduced and maintained sharp gender differentiation in the division of labour. Socialisation and women's own internalisation of their role and position in society, upheld dominant male ideology and subordination of women. Under colonialism, missionary and colonial education renegotiated but did not fundamentally change the role and position of women. However, it inadvertently also provided women with ways to move out of the household sphere into the wider labour market, albeit as unequal participants. Missionary education strictly separated the sexes and rested on the continued association of women with Victorian notions of 'domesticity'. The concept of ideology is used in this paper to tease out and highlight the gender dynamics which have influenced and directed education among Batswana. Introduction The precolonial and missionary concepts of "gender" were at times congruent and at times conflicting in their perception of men and women's changing roles in society. Although the Tswana precolonial notions of gender were also based on a strict division of labour, in the homestead-based economy of communal precolonial Tswana society, women's work was not confined to a "private" and domestic sphere of the home. It included "public" duties outside the home such as agricultural production and the gathering of wild fruit and vegetables. This widened the scope of women's activities and increased their socio-economic worth in precolonial communities. The gender specific Victorian ideology had distinct educational objectives for Tswana men and women. Western schools taught different subjects to boys and girls and prepared them for distinct socio-economic roles. The narrowly perceived Victorian notion of "domesticity" which was engendered in this process, affected Batswana women's lives in important ways. To some extent, the Tswana socio-cultural structures overlapped with Victorian perceptions of women's work, mainly in the sense that women were in each of these societies, associated with maternal and homemaking roles. However, the residual effects of these structures mediated missionary and colonial education and sanctioned Batswana womenis schooling, ensuring that they did not get fully domesticated. Moreover, there were distinct differences as well. For example, Batswana women, like other African women, were not confined to the narrow sphere of the home, as they performed other duties outside the home, such as cultivation of masimo (lands), collection of wild foods and building materials such as bojang (grass). Just as Batswana had selectively appropriated "Christianising" and "civilising" symbols, so with education too, they exercised this selectivity .. During the colonial era, missionaries continued to be responsIble for the education of Batswana alongside merafe schools, which were sponsored and run by merafe themselves" However, with the granting of minimal funding to the financially beleaguered mission societies, the colo~ial government ,increasin~ly gaine~ co~trol over curriculum policy, more significantly III the late 1920 sand 30 s. The rejectIOn of the 155 colonial sponsored "industrial" education and Batswana's o~erall ~r~fer~nce for "academic" education from the early 1890is, affected wom.en s partlcIP.atlOn a~so. Women were inadvertently caught between these competmg gender IdeologI.es. Moreover, although it remained domestic oriented, missionary and colonial educatIOn inadvertently provided women with opportunities to move out of the household and into the public domain of the western milieu. Gender as a Category of Social Analysis The notion of ideology and the concept of Marxist-feminism influence the sugge.sted framework. However, these ideas serve to underpin rather than to dictate the analysIs of women's education amongst Batswana. Marxist-feminism gained ground in the 1970's as a response to, as well as an improvement on the hitherto gender-blind studies of social inequality. It maintained that the materialist determinism of Marxism failed to highlight the distinctive position of women. This is because Marxist thought t~nds to stratifYand assess society in terms of class, completely disregarding and submergmg the issue of gender (Rosaldo and Lampere, 1974; Barrett, 1980). The inadequacy of this paradigm is due to the fact that class alone cannot account for the different positions th~t men and women occupy in the socio-economic and political structures of their communities (Bozzoli, 1983). It is only when deliberate measures are taken to study gender relations that women become "alive" as active participants. In addressing this inadequacy, Marxist-feminism integrated Marxist analytical concepts with those of feminism, by adding the notion of gender to conventional Marxism to try to highlight the factors relating to productive forces and to the social relations of production (Sacks, 1979). The use of this paradigm for historical analysis was proposed by Joan Scott, who suggested a conscious and deliberate use of the term "gender" in integrated studies of social change (Scott, 1986: I066). This mode of analysis examines the experiences of both men and women, rather than merely focusing on the women. Because men and women stand in different positions to educational acquisition, knowing the problems or successes of one group would help to highlight those of the other. Participation in colonial education was determined by gender as well as by class, since gender criss-crosses and is itself criss-crossed by class. Hence, men and women experienced different problems, relative to their gender and socio-economic class position, and stood in different positions with regard to educational acquisition. An important aspect of the Marxist-feminist paradigm relates to the inter- connectedness of class and gender, which is useful in studies that are specifically concerned with womenis issues and experiences. Since women belong to different socio- economic groups, the discrimination they experience as females is relative to their socio-economic class position. In the context of South Africa, Belinda Bozzoli's study highlighted the short-sightedness of treating women's issues as if women were a homogenous category (Bozzoli, 1983). Amongst Batswana, women from royal and wealthy sections of society had different educational opportunities and experienced different constraints to schooling, even though as a group, women were subjected to a gender-specific education that sought to perpetuate their subor~inate s.tat~s.Bonyerile, the daughter of Kgosi Khama was one a few wom~n who received missIOnary education early on. However, her schooling in South Afnca was cut short when she was recalled to be married off to one of her father's headm~n, Lekhutile. Semane Setlhoko, future wife of Kgosi Khama III, and Koolebale Rakaetl, a Mongwato .noble, w.ere also trailblazers in educational acquisition amongst Ba~gwato: Due to their educ;tlOn, they were consequently engaged as Rachel Sharpis assistants In the local school. Sechele's daughters, Ope, Kereboletswe, Kwantheng and Bantshang, were sent to the Moffats at Kuruman where they were apprenticed by MaMary Moffat.3 The use of royal and other influential women also served the important purpose of attracting other women into the mission fold, due mainly to their 156 position in s~ciety, ~ut also because they were viewed as trailblazers. Royal women and others from mfluentIaI sectors of the society were able to advance in this way because servants were always at hand to perform their household duties and related ones. To a large extent therefore, having servants enabled these women to pursue their educational and related interests.4 Similarly, in a recent article, Parsons highlighted the fact that Tswana men from royal households advanced better and faster in education because family servants undertook their herding duties (Parsons, 1997:6). In another context based on a collection of women's life stories, Belinda Bozzoli highlighted the fact that while the South African racist policies adversely affected the entire black populace, Phokeng women suffered doubly under these circumstances due to their gender, as well as their social class. This placed them in an inferior and disadvantaged position in relation to social power (Bozzoli, 1991). Ideology as an Analytical Tool Ideology can be described as a dominant set of values, ideas, meanings and symbols that govern the behaviour and roles of members of a society, and serve to justify its existence. The dominant group in society, which controls the socio-economic and political power also controls the dominant ideology of that society (Mills, 1956). For example, it determines what constitutes culture, knowledge, and acceptable ways of behaviour, ideas and symbols. While this (dominant) ideology propounds the ideas of the dominant group, these ideas are presented as the common ideas and interests of all members of that society (Marx & Engels, 1947: 65-66). The strength of ideological power lies in the fact that it is invisible, and does not always show itself in actions and conflicts, hence its (oppressive) ideas may be accepted as normal (Fogelberg, 1981). The system of domination however, has inbuilt mechanisms for challenge, and constantly struggles to maintain the hegemony that is central to the reproduction of the social relations of production. In this regard, Gramsci pointed out that dominant institutions give rise to countervailing tendencies and oppositional practices, which serve to challenge hegemony of dominant interest groups (Gramsci, 1971) Thus, "non-dominant classes are not necessarily unproblematically manipulated in some over determined way" (Sharp, 1980:I02). Although ideology is an important analytical tool, it needs to be contextualised to a particular time and place, since the 19th and 20th centuries precolonial and colonial precapitalist Tswana structures differed significantly from the industrial capitalist Britain on which the Victorian "domestic" notions were based. This paper deals with two main conceptual issues relating to ideology. One relates to the ideologies of gender that are associated with Tswana precolonial society, missionaries and the colonial government; the other relates to the "institutionalisation" of these ideologies. The former refers to the ways in which precolonial Batswana, colonial government officials and missionaries perceived women's work, and women's roles. The latter refers to the ways in which these notions of gender were played out and negotiated in (traditional and colonial) Tswana society. Tswana society, missionaries and colonial government officials in various ways sought to exert a certain measure o.fhegemonic (ge.nder)ideology ?~er Batswan~ women at different periods. In precolomal Tswana socIety, the prevaIlmg gender Ideology largely served male interests, and perpe~uated men's socio-pol~tical and economic domination over women. The male-dommated Tswana gender Ideology underwent important transformations during colonisation, however, with crucial repercussions for the lives of individual women. Missionaries were representatives of a western culture that aspired to a greater degree of hegemony over Tswana prec~loni~l and precapitalist. structures (Bozzoli, 1~.91:74). This can be detected in the way m whIch they sought to mcorporate Batswana mto the kingdom of God and Great Britain" (Comaroff & Comaroff, 1992:52). Specifically, the 157 "colonial evangelism" of missionaries is generally acknowledged to have paved the ~ay for a more widely-encompassing hegemonic domination of Batswana and other African societies (Beidelman, 1982). In its lowest form, ideology does not take on "hegemonic" tendencies and can be questioned or contested openly. This means that at its lowest level, ideology is not does not result in such a high degree of domination that it would invite strong and open criticism. Moreover, "hegemonic visions rarely attain the same meaning as that intended in the minds of those at whom they are directed" (Bozzoli, 1991:75). The subordinate groups have their own ideology which can present itself in the form of "an articulated system of meanings, values, and beliefs"(Comaroff & Comaroff, 1991:24) While they may not engage in open contestation, subordinate groups may show a partial recognition, or ambiguous perception of their socio~cultural position. In this sense, in particular contexts, their consciousness may become transformed into an ideology. This would happen if they had a common understanding of their socio- economic position as a class or unified group, which would lead them to protest against their circumstances. This mode of analysis can be applied to Tswana structures which had their own countervailing ideologies that were not subsumed by, and were able to some extent, to mediate and articulate the impact of missionary and colonial endeavours. For example, Batswana men and women had a measure of control over the type of education they wanted. They c1amoured for iindustriali education early on in the colonial era. However, by the early twentieth they had begun to demand iacademici education, when they realised its utility in the emerging socio-economic milieu. Hence the failure of the Khale Agricultural and Handyman's Training Institution and the initial lack of support for Tiger Kloofby Batswana. At this time, Batswana regarded Healdtown, Adams College, Kilnerton, Marianhill, and Lovedale, to be offering a better form of education.s These demands for academic education became more pronounced in the 1920's and 1930's. In educational acquisition, Batswana women experienced double constraints emanating from their own society's obligations and from those of a colonial domestic- oriented education. However, it is important to realise that it was also western education that gradually gave the women the opportunity to mediate their "traditional" subordinate position, and in many cases it this agency which enabled them to acquire individual socio-economic status within the western capitalist economy. Ideologies of Gender Gender ideology comprises on the one hand, a set of ideas, values and norms accorded to men and women, which then serve as a basis for according different spheres of life and specific productive roles to each of the two sexes. Gender ideology also influences the asymmetrical evaluation of male and female socio-economic activities (Fogelberg, 1981:6). Anthropological and historical studies have however, questioned the universal dichotomous categorisation of male and female activities (MacCormack & Strathern, 1980; Rosaldo, 1980; Higgins & Mukhopadhyay, 1987). These and other studies have further questioned the exclusive identification of women with their procreative capacity and with domestic life (Rosaldo & Lampere, 1974). Some of these studies have pointed out that different cultures attribute different meanings that are not always or everywhere bound up with male dominance and female subordination, where women's work often includes activities outside the home (Klein, 1982). Leacock and Etienne questioned and demon~trated th.e inade~uacy of theories of universality and uniformity of female oppreSSIOns,particularly III reference to the African colonial context (Leacock & Etienne, 1980). Three main ideologies of gender are central to this framework, and serve to underpin the a.nalysis .of men and ~omen's education amongst Batswana. These ideologies pertam espeCially to the notIOn of men and women's work, and the role of education in 158 maintaining the wider structures of society. What forms did education take in precolonial Tswana society, and how were the various aspects of men's and women's work percei~ed? How ~id t~es~ interact and contend with the missionaries' concept of gender relattons? How dId mIssIOnaryproselytization and "civilising" influences seek to redefine the role of women? How was the notion of "domesticity" perceived and promoted in missionary and colonial education? How did this type of education affect women's overall socio-economic position? Precolonial Tswana society possessed its own forms of gender ideology, which served to regulate the productive and personal relationships between men and women. Although precolonial Tswana strucrures depicted a sharp gender division of labour, men and women's work did not strictly conform to the western public/private trajectories. While men were responsible for activities that were largely "public" in nature, women's work was not restricted to the "private" domain of the home. Women had the primary responsibility for agricultural production, and due partly to the harshness of the environment and unpredictable climatic conditions, women also engaged in the gathering of wild fruit and vegetables to supplement the family diet (Kinsman, 1983). Thus, the homestead as the Tswana unit of production was more widely encompassing than the western "household". It encompassed both the "masimo" (ploughing fields or lands) and the bush or forest, where women collected wild foods and building materials. This significantly set the Tswana notion of womanhood apart from the late 19th and 20th cenrury European one. During the missionary and colonial eras, some notions of Tswana womanhood and women's work were changed while others were reinforced. Thus, the introduction of the western notion of "domesticity" affected and transformed relations between men and women in important ways. In some cases these transformations could be said to have been congruent while in other cases missionary endeavours came into conflict with precolonial notions of Tswana womanhood. For instance, when missionaries came into Tswana society, they brought with them Victorian-based notions of gender, which reflected the woman's role in 19th century industrialising Europe. In that society, the role of the woman in the home and the family was crucial to the creation of a particular moral order which served the larger needs of discipline and social control (Comaroff & ComarofT, 1992:39). The colonial socio-cultural ordering of Tswana society sought to make "new" men and women of Batswana in the fashion of Western or European gender relationships. Both the missionaries and the colonial government officials sought a cuirural ordering of African society by "creating new forms of men's work and women's work". They sought to reshape "African notions of labour and time, architecture, consumption and accumulation, body and clothing, diet and hygiene" and to impose western notions of household organisation and gender on local conceptualisations (Hansen, 1992:5)6. The role of the woman, especially in the home, was an important factor in the socio-cultural reordering of Tswana society. Hence, unlike in precolonial Tswana society, in the missionaries! Victorian notion of womanhood, women were much more closely associated with the domestic sphere. Woman's work was synonymous with "household" work, and stressed the importance of the woman as wife, housekeeper and mother (Hansen, 1992:7). In precapitalist Tswana society however, the role of mother was not restricted to the biological mother. In the communalism of Tswana society, older women and younger children participated in childrearing, enabling the biological mother to undertake other duties, including those outside the home. Western "civilising" and "Christianising" influences and symbols were not everywhere, nor whole-heartedly, or even con~!stently appropriat~d. ~; alien socio- culrural and economic values and symbols were selectIvely appropnated by Batswana and other Africans. For example, indigenous forms of architecrure persisted amongst Batswana "serving to perpetuate an order of value and routines that flourished beyond 159 the missionaries' influence (Comaroff & Comaroff, 1992:58). Similarly, just as Batswana displayed eclectic tendencies in regard to Christianity, in educational appropriation too Batswana exercised selectivity... Domestic education and training had a crucial role to play III the spread of Christianity and in "propping up" colonialism. Although missionaries and colonial officials had similar notions of womanhood, the domestic training of women served different purposes for each, and in each case, it did not necessarily or always sit weIl with the interests of African males. Thus, the gender redefinition that was engendered led to tensions, frictions as weIl as opposition (Hansen, 1992:6-7). In a related context, in Buganda "the chiefs insisted that cultivation and home management be central to the school's curriculum (and) agreed to girls' education only after they were assured it would not take girls away from domestic roles" (Musisi, 1992:173). Amongst Batswana also, girls' education was not always accepted and even where it was, its acceptance was gradual and was mediated by, and remained surbodinate to the precapitalist needs of Tswana society. These placed restrictions on the level and type of education that women could acquire. The already noted issue regarding Kgosi Khama's daughter Bonyerile is a case in point. Further, the continued use of girls in agricultural and household activities also testified to the subjection of Western colonising processes to Tswana needs and interests. As highlighted by oral testimonies, the changing educational aspirations of women also led to tensions in personal relations between males and females, where Batswana men and women sometimes held conflicting ideas about the education of their children. Men generaIly preferred the education of men to that of women, although there were exceptions depending on the socio-economic background of families and their individual circumstances.s Many accounts testify to the wide prevalence of the idea that ito educate a girl was risky, because when she got married, she would latlhegela (be lost to) her parents. Hence her education would not benefit her own parents, but her in-laws.9 "Institutionalisation" of ideologies The missionary form of women's education was strictly gender specific and was targeted to transform the role of Tswana women in conformity with missionaries' "proselytising" and "civilising" objectives. Although women were not debarred from attending formal bible classes (which in fact they attended in larger numbers than men in all but the Ngwato territory until the early twentieth century -Landau, 1995:54), the missionaries' primary objective for women's education was training in housework. In missionary terms, such work ostensibly excluded agriculture, which missionaries felt contravened the Victorian domestic ideal. InitiaIly, women's "education" consisted of informal domestic training undertaken by missionaries' wives, where the husband served as "the Jack of all trades without doors, and the wife the maid of all work within" (Livingstone, 1857:22). Just as formal Tswana initiation rituals and socialisation methods had lent "womanhood" its institutional efficacy, so in missionary and colonial eras, "domesticity" achieved institutionalisation through both informal village work with women, and formal domestic training in western educational institutions. Amongst Batswana, the move towards formal institutionalisation began with the teaching of the rudimentaries of .sewing, knitting and cookery to girls, while boys were taught woodwork and agnculture. In the various villages where missionaries laboured, domestic work was taught not only informaIly at the residences of the local women missionaries, but also in the elementary schools that began to crop up. The activities of missionaries such as Alice Young and EIla Sharp amongst Bangwato; Elizabeth Price nee Moffat Mrs Williams, the wife of missionary Charles ":'iIliams and, EIlen Hargreaves and 'Mary Partridge amongst Bakwena, and Mrs Bum 10 Kanye taught various aspects of domestic service 160 in addition to their regular classes with women. In the late 19th century, girls' domestic "higher" education was first offered at the Moffat Institute by Annie Cockin, and was further consolidated at Tiger Kloof Institution, when it opened its doors to women in 1916. The Mochudi Homecraft Centre, which opened in 1943 was possibly the epitome of women is training in housework amongst Batswana.JO However, "women's" education did not remain static, nor did it remain concerned with housework alone. Missionary and colonial education primarily sought to restrict women to the domestic arena. But due partly to the educational awareness and educational demands of Batswana themselves, in the changing socio-political and economic structures, like men's education, women's education became increasingly "academic". The aspirations of individual women and their parents, which also changed with the times, influenced the direction of Tswana men and women's education . This was combined with the women's efforts and ability to turn around and subvert some of the oppressive pressures and constraints that were placed upon them. These related to the male dominant ideology of their own society, and that of the missionaries and the colonial civil service. I I Moreover, the mission agenda itself increasingly required the incorporation of women into elementary school teaching. Even though the consequences were not so intended, this process gradually opened the way for more women to venture into the formal employment sphere, which was initially a male preserve. Although women generally outnumbered men in elementary levels of schooling, there were some exceptions. 12 In any case even in instances where enrolments for women were greater than those of men, their numbers often petered off at higher levels of education. For example, of the 44 qualified teachers (with the Primary Teacher's Certificate and above) in 1931, only 3 were women. By 1944, women teachers still comprised only 16.5 percent of the teaching force, trained mainly in domestic science.D This situation can at least be partly explained by the fact that men's herding duties took many of them away from the village where school was located. Many of them bridged the transition from cattlepost to school by going to the mines abroad, from where many of them returned when they were well into their teens. This enabled the women to have a head start in (elementary) education, which they soon lost due to the requirements of tending the old and the infirm, and childbearing and rearing/minding.14 The domestic education of women was crucial to the entrenchment of colonial rule, but its emphasis and its direction were mediated by, and in turn, mirrored other changes occurring in the wider political economy. Colonial education policy reflected the needs of the colonial administration at a particular time in the history of Bechuanaland Protectorate. The largely middle-class background of the colonial civil service helped to shape domesticity through its policies, either in collusion or in conflict with local white residents or rural African authorities (Hansen, 1992: 9). The objectives of the colonial government in the education of women were not everywhere and every time consonant with those of the missionaries, In the 1930's and 40's, colonial education policy was directed toward the "ruralization" and "peasantization" as opposed to the "industrialisation" and "urbanisation" of African society. This was reflected in the "industrial" education policy adopted and the gender ideology t~~t influ~n~ed it. Men ~nd women were necessarily educated to occupy different posItIons wlthm the colo~lal economy. However, the conflicting educational needs of Batswana and other AfrIcans affected and altered the course of colonial education policy in important ways. Generally, Batswana and other Africans increasingly became opposed to "industrial" colonial education policies, and demanded "academic" education instead. Domestic education served as the main form of education for women during missionary and colonial periods., H~we,;er, by the 1940's, the s~bject ~as no l?nger desired or studied for its "domestlcatmg effects alone, although It was still a deSIrable and effective means of transmitting the values and symbols which were regarded as an 161 important mark of Western "civilisation". Increasingly, Batswana saw domesti~ education as a viable economic option, certainly for those who went to Mochudl Homecraft Centre. As educational options in postcolonial Botswana expanded, however, domestic education has increasingly been accorded a low priority, and has gradually lost much of its original preeminence. In conjunction with regular schools and institutions such as the Mochudi Homecraft Centre, another interesting dimension to Western colonial education was the Wayfarers and Pathfinders Associations for girls and boys respectively. In the context of South Africa, these associations together with the Sunday schools and the Christian youth movements were introduced in order to supplement regular schooling with specific regard to moral and religious training. IS The Wayfarers and Pathfinders also provided skills such as sewing knitting and childcare, which were combined with some form of scriptural training.16 In Bechuanaland Protectorate, the needlework and simple housework training was integrated into Girl Guide and Wayfarer activities. The women who were closely associated with this work were Mrs Rey, the wife of Resident Commissioner Lt. Colonel Rey, Mrs. Rheinallt Jones, adviser on race relations in South Africa, and Mrs. R. Joyce of Mafeking (Director of Education's Annual Reports, 1931-1937, Botswana National Archives S.99/I/S). With the gradual change of attitudes towards women's education, more women were also able to participate in higher education, as well as in training and employment as teachers, nurses and secretaries. The increasing employment opportunities in postcolonial Botswana enabled a significant number of women to work outside the home, albeit in domestic-oriented vocations. Further, as a result of the mass education policies of the postcolonial, more women have been able to participate in higher education, although they are still grossly underrepresented in areas such as mathematics, medicine, science and engineering in various levels of education (Duncan, 1985). In higher education, women's enrolments at the University of Botswana, for example, lagged behind for at least the first two decades after independence. 17 This situation has consequently had a negative impact on the overall participation and position of women in the labour market vis-a-vis that of men (Marope, 1994:30). In the 1990's, in areas such as the social sciences and education women's enrolments have tended to equal and even surpass those of men, but have co~tinued to lag behind those of men in science and technology related areas (Sefe & Rasebotsa, 1991; Marope, 1994). Moreover, in various ways and in their own households, many women have continued to be subject to various constraints that prevent them from acquiring individual socio-economic status. However, due to increasing gender awareness and lobbying, Batswana women can be said to be increasingly showing at least partial recognition of their socio-cultural position, which mayor may not be transformed into an ideology in the hegemonic sense. Notes 1. See for example, P.T. Mgadla (1986) & J. Ramsay, (1991) for more detailed accounts of education amongst Bangwato and Bakwena respectively. See also E.W. Watters, 'The Roots of Education Development and Evolution in Botswana', Ed.D. Thesis, Lehigh University, 1973, for a more general narrative of education in Bechuanaland Protectorate. 2. Koolebale Rakaeti and Semane Setlhoko had attained a Standard 4 level education. 3. Meaning literally 'mother of Mary'. Her daughter Mary was later married to David Livingstone-missio.nary,. explorer, and trader. See Dickson (1989); Smith (1957) for snippets on apprenticeship of Batswana royal women to missionaries. See also Mafela (1996), and Mgadla (1998). 4. This ?oe~ not ?,ean that these women no longer did any housework, as in fact they took great pnde m domg the Western type of housework, which was associated with all things modern, 'civilised' and coveted. On the other hand, the 'traditional' type of housework, even 162 where it comprised similar duties, had to do with the ioldi way of doing things as well as using old (traditional) types of utensils/ equipment, and servants continued to do much of it. 5. For a detailed discussion of the various 'Native' educational and training institutions see T.J. Jones, (ed.) Education in Africa,:A Study of East, Central and Southern Africai, a Report of the Second African Commission undertaken under the Auspices of the Phelps Stokes Fund, in Cooperation with the International Education Board, 1923-24. Copy in Botswana National Archives (BNA), file ZKM/ll. 6. Also see P.S. Landau, (1995), 58-64, on Western clothing as a mark of Christianity amongst Bangwato. 7. I owe this notion to Karen Tranberg Hansen (1992). 8. Acceptance or rejection of the education of women was largely mediated by the socio- economic circumstances of individual families (Mafela,I993: 288). 9. Mme Mary 'MmaMogoma' Selerio of Goora-Mmopi ward, Molepolole, interviewed in Gaborone, May 31, 1991. She also indicated that in the early part of this century parents were uncomfortable about sending their (female) children to school far away as in the case of Tiger Kloof. 10. See Mafela (1994), for a detailed discussion of Mochudi Homecraft Centre. II. See Mafela (1993), for more detailed discussions of women's personal experiences with regard to missionary and colonial education (287-296). In particular, see the testimony of Mme MmaSegaise who borrowed a dress from a neighbour and ran away to school against her fatheris wishes (289). See also a parallel issue, in Parsons (1997) regarding women's vocal and physical (popular) protest against Tshekedi Khama and colonial rule which culminated, and manifested itself in the Serowe riot of 1952. Women were definitely never passive recipients of colonial rule generally, education in particular. It is this 'agency' of women that needs to be highlighted side by side with the constraints which they nonetheless faced, in order to get a more balanced perspective. 12. See for example Mafela (1993:97). 13. See Bechuanaland Protectorate, Annual Report, Director of Education, 1944, in BNA, BNB 507. For some early figures, see Landau, 1995:96-97, showing higher enrolments for women in church and school, and Mafela (1993: 197) for gender disparities at Tiger Kloof. See also Gustaffson (1987:52). 14. See Mafela (1993) for a discussion of some aspects of labour migration and education in Bechuanaland Protectorate. 15. In the context of South Africa the (co-educational) Sunday schools had their predecessors in America and Britain (Gaitskell, 1981). The introduction of these associations was reportedly in response to the aridity of religious education in schools, which caused great anxiety in the mid-1930's (260). 16. Gaitskell (1981) has suggested that the establishment of such institutions was possibly tied up with the need of white colonialists to have decent, healthy female servants working in their homes and looking after their children (see D.B. Gaitskell, 1981: 235, & Gaitskell, 1984: 22-64). 17. See table in Marope, 1994: 29. References Barrett, M. 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