From ‘civilising the young’ to a ‘dead-end job’: gender, teaching, and the politics of colonial rule in Hong Kong (1841–1970)
2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 41; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/0046760x.2011.635603
ISSN1464-5130
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Education Studies Worldwide
ResumoAbstract The feminisation of teaching is an important topic in education and gender studies. Discussions have been enriched by comparative and international studies as well as a gendering perspective in which a complicated view of the role of the state has emerged. In colonial Hong Kong, although the government was limited in its support of teacher training, its strategic control was not ineffective. Through regulating the teaching force, the colonial regime was instrumental in training women to help civilise the young and in creating a dead end job – that of a ‘primary school teacher’. It also constantly (re)constructed the nature and role of ‘Chinese teacher’ and ‘Chinese women’. By revealing some seldom-explored strategies and disrupting the fixed meanings of ‘Chinese teacher’, ‘Chinese women’, and ‘primary school teacher’, this paper unravels the intervention and (re)invention of the colonial regime in the teaching occupation and probes their implications for a patriarchal society. Keywords: feminisationgenderingChinese womenprimary school teachercolonial rule Notes 1 2A term coined by J. Albisetti, ‘The Feminization of Teaching in the Nineteenth Century: A Comparative Perspective’, History of Education 22, no. 3 (1993): 253–63. 3For instance, the following studies have more or less subscribed to this framework when explaining the feminisation of teaching: H. Bradley, Men’s Work, Women’s Work (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989); M. David, The State, the Family, and Education (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980); M. Grumet, ‘Pedagogy for Patriarchy: The Feminization of Teaching’, Interchange 12, nos. 2–3 (1981): 165–84; J. Purvis, A History of Women’s Education in England (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991); M. Strober and D. Tyack, ‘Why Do Women Teach and Men Manage? A Report on Research on Schools’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5, no. 3 (1980): 494–503. 4Albisetti, ‘The Feminization of Teaching’, 253–63. 5R. Cortina and S.S. Roman, eds., Women and Teaching: Global Perspectives on the Feminization of a Profession (New York: Palgrave, 2006). 6See Albisetti, ‘The Feminization of Teaching’, 257–58 and M. Van Essen, ‘Strategies of Women Teachers 1860–1920: Feminization in Dutch Elementary and Secondary Schools from a Comparative Perspective’, History of Education 28, no. 4 (1999): 413–33. 7The gendered prescription existed in Argentina, Brazil, Germany, and the Netherlands: see G. Fischman, ‘Persistence and Ruptures: The Feminization of Teaching and Teacher Education in Argentina’, Gender and Education 19, no. 3 (2007), 355; F. Rosemberg, ‘Educational Policies and Gender: An Assessment of the 1990s in Brazil’, in Women and Teaching: Global Perspectives on the Feminization of a Profession, ed. R. Cortina and S.S. Roman (New York: Palgrave, 2006), 143–46; Albisetti, ‘The Feminization of Teaching’, 262; M. Van Essen, ‘Strategies of Women Teachers’, 431. 8The employment of uncertificated women was an acceptable practice in France, England, Costa Rica, Spain, and Mexico; see S. Trouve-Finding, ‘Teaching as a Women’s Job: The Impact of the Admission of Women to Elementary Teaching in England and France in the Late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries’, History of Education 34, no. 5 (2005): 483–96, and Cortina and Roman, Women and Teaching, 5. In Brazil and the Netherlands, the states accepted lower certification standards from women teachers; see Rosemberg, ‘Educational Policies and Gender’, 144 and Van Essen, ‘Strategies of Women Teachers’, 419–21. 9See J. Blount, ‘Manliness and the Gendered Construction of School Administration in the USA’, International Journal of Leadership in Education 2, no. 2 (1999): 55–68; Strober and Tyack, ‘Why Do Women Teach’, 498. 10Several gendered ideologies have been mentioned in the literature, ranging from stressing the innate, maternal, loving, caring nature of women and their suitability to teach young children; to the compatibility of teaching with marriage; to teaching as an ideal preparation for motherhood; to social maternalism. See H.C. Araujo, ‘The Emergence of a “New Orthodoxy”: Public Debates on Women’s Capacities and Education in Portugal, 1880–1910’, Gender and Education 4, nos. 1/2 (1992): 7–24; C. Steedman, ‘“The Mother Made Conscious”: The Historical Development of a Primary School Pedagogy’, in Family, School and Society, ed. M. Woodhead and A. McGrath (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1986), 82–95; Cortina and Roman, Women and Teaching, 1–20; Strober and Tyack, ‘Why Do Women Teach?’, 494–97; G. Morgade, ‘State, Gender, and Class in the Social Construction of Argentine Women Teachers’, in Women and Teaching: Global Perspectives on the Feminization of a Profession, ed. R. Cortina and S.S. Roman (New York: Palgrave, 2006), 81–103; Fischman, ‘Persistence and Ruptures’, 353–68. 11Joan Scott’s seminal essay on gender as an analytical concept has inspired studies to use gender to decode cultural meanings in apparently gender-unrelated categories; see J. Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 28–50. I am not aware of any scholar who has utilised her insights to explore the history of the teaching occupation, but the studies by Ava Baron on labour history and Dana Britton on the history of prison officers have helped me re-examine the history of the job category ‘primary school teacher’, especially with regard to when and how it became associated with ‘women’s work’. See A. Baron, ed., Work Engendered: Toward a New History of American Labor (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1991), and D. Britton, ‘Gendered Organisational Logic: Policy and Practice in Men’s and Women’s Prisons’, Gender and Society 11, no. 6 (1997): 796–818. 12J. Tosh, The Pursuit of History: Aims, Methods, and New Directions in the Study of Modern History (Harlow, Hong Kong: Pearson Education, 2010), 283. 13See Bernard Hung-kay Luk, ‘Opportunities for Women in Tertiary Education’, in Women and Education in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, ed. Comparative Education Center (SUNY, Buffalo: Graduate School of Education Publication, 1990), Chapter 7; Hung-kay Luk, Cong Rong Shu Xia Dao Dian Nao Qian: Xianggang Jiao Yu De Gu Shi (Hong Kong: Step Forward Publisher, 2003), 199–207. Fang has provided a short historical account of the Vernacular Normal School for Women; see Jun Fang, ‘The Vernacular Normal School for Women (1920–1941): The Sole Female Teacher Training Institute in Hong Kong’, Education Horizon 48 (2003): 56–63. 14Scott, Gender & the Politics of History, 43. 15According to Baron, historical studies are not gender-neutral and feminist scholars should develop their own periodisation; see Work Engendered, 5. 16Luk, Cong Rong Shu Xia, 29–40; Anthony Sweeting, ‘Hong Kong’, in Teacher Education in the English-Speaking World: Past, Present, and Future, ed. T. O’Donoghue and C. Whitehead (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2008), 98–9. 18Anthony Sweeting, ‘Hong Kong Education within Historical Processes’, in Education and Society in Hong Kong: Toward One Country and Two Systems, ed. G.A. Postiglione (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1991), 43. 17Bernard H.K. Luk, ‘Chinese Culture in the Hong Kong Curriculum: Heritage and Colonialism’, Comparative Education Review 35, no. 4 (1991): 650–68. 19Comments of the Headmaster of the Central School and the Inspector of Schools, Frederick Stewart; see Education Report 1866, paragraph 4. The Education Reports quoted in this article are taken from the collection of Gillian Bickley, The Development of Education in Hong Kong, 1841–1897: As Revealed by the Early Education Report by the Hong Kong Government 1848–1896 (Hong Kong: Proverse Hong Kong, 2002). 20See Hong Kong Education Department, Annual Report (Hong Kong: Government Printer, 1922), paragraph 24. The Annual Reports quoted in this article (which were re-titled as Annual Summaries after 1956) were all prepared by the Hong Kong Education Department. 21See Vivian Wai-man Yiu, ‘An Evaluation of Teacher Education Policy in Hong Kong’ (MSocSc thesis, The University of Hong Kong, 1983). 22For instance, the Tung Wah Hospital Group offered free education for boys in 1880 but to girls only in 1931. Kaifong (neighbourhood) schools, which were usually small in scale, offered free vernacular education for Chinese boys, but no provision for girls was recorded until 1894. The Confucius Society only started their first girls’ school in 1922; see Patricia Chiu, ‘Girls’ Education in Colonial Hong Kong (1841–1941): Gender, Politics and Experience’ (PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 2009), 101–105. 23Chiu, ‘Girls’ Education in Colonial Hong Kong’, 53. 24For a more detailed account of the efforts of missionaries to make educational opportunities available to poor and marginalised women in Hong Kong, see Patricia Chiu, ‘“A Position of Usefulness”: Gendering History of Girls’ Education in Colonial Hong Kong (1850s–1890s)’, History of Education 37, no. 6 (2008): 789–805. 25Carl Smith, Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005), 208. 26The words were from Mrs. Irwin, a school committee member of the Diocesan Native Female Training School (DNFTS); cited by Patricia Chiu, ‘A Position of Usefulness’; Patricia Chiu, ‘A Gendered Discourse of English Language Education (1850s–1900s)’, Conference and Exhibition on ‘Education and Heritage’, (June 26–27, 2009, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong), 3. 27Education Report, 1865, paragraph 43. 28Annual Report, 1898, paragraph 19. 29See Ernst J. Eitel, A Report to Frederick Stewart, the Colonial Secretary in Hong Kong, on 5 July 1889, No. 41, CO 129/242, 80–82. 30Chiu, ‘A Gendered Discourse of English Language Education’, 2–6. 31Education Report, 1895, paragraph 15. 32Education Report, 1895, paragraph 9. 33CO129/242, paragraph 4. 34For discussions of this thriving Chinese and Eurasian elite class, see Wai-kwan Chan, The Making of Hong Kong Society: Three Studies of Class Formation in Early Hong Kong (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991); John Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong (Lamham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 63–88; Wing-sang Law, Collaborative Colonial Power: The Making of the Hong Kong Chinese (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009), 9–29. 35Education Report, 1890, paragraph 9. 36CO129/242, paragraph 5. 37Annual Report, 1888, paragraph 10. 38When BPS was first set up, a pupil-teacher scheme was also established. Not surprisingly, its headmistress, Mary Ward, recruited an English girl as a pupil teacher to be trained to assist her work. See Chiu, ‘Girls’ Education in Colonial Hong Kong’, 79. 39Examples include Ying Wa Girls’ School, Diocesan Girls’ School, St. Stephen Girls’ College, St. Paul Girls’ College, and Maryknoll Girls’ School; see Chiu, ‘Girls’ Education in Colonial Hong Kong’, 90–101. 40See Chai-lok Wang, Xianggang Zhongwen Jiao Yu Fa Zhan Shi (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Company, 1996), 254. 41See Yu-shek Cheng, Government and Public Affairs: Education (Hong Kong: Summerson Eastern, 1987), 5. In 1937, the figure was up again to 67,988 and the number of vernacular primary schools had risen to 650, as compared to 100 in 1899; see Wang, Xianggang Zhongwen Jiao Yu, 336. 42For discussions on the contributions of some of these pioneers to girls’ education, see Wang, Xianggang Zhongwen Jiao Yu, 193–204; Luk, Cong Rong Shu Xia, 90–7. For a discussion of female education in Late Qing and early Republic China, see Paul Bailey, ‘Active Citizen or Efficient Housewife? The Debate over Women’s Education in Early-Twentieth Century China’, in Education, Culture, and Identity in Twentieth Century China, ed. G.R. Petersen, R. Hayhoe, and Yu Yongling (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2001), 318–347. 43Carroll, A Concise History, 83. 44Anthony Sweeting ‘Training Teachers: Processes, Products, and Purposes’, in An Impossible Dream: Hong Kong University from Foundation to Re-establishment, 1910–1950, ed. Chan Lau Kit-ching and Peter Cunich (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2002), 69. 45These two vernacular normal schools were both closed down in 1940, shortly after a new, co-educational teachers’ college, Northcote College of Education, had been established in 1939. 49CO, 129/489, paragraphs 88 and 90. 46In 1925, after a labourer was killed in a Japanese cotton mill factory, students and workers launched a demonstration in Shanghai, during which British police shot and arrested some protesters. The shooting soon triggered public anger and widespread protest against the British police force in all major Chinese cities. Massive numbers of workers and students in Hong Kong left for Canton (Guangzhou), where financial aid and accommodation were provided by its coalition government, comprising members of the Chinese Communist Party and some left-wingers of the Kuomintang, which also blocked strikers from returning to Hong Kong. For a detailed analysis of the various causes of the Strike, such as nationalism, anti-imperialism, and economic inequalities and hardship in the colony, see Jung-fang Tsai, The Hong Kong People’s History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2001), 121–172. 47This memorandum, containing three parts and 111 paragraphs, reads like an official investigation of the 1925 Strike and Boycott. It was written by R.H. Kotewall and published along with a report by the Governor, Reginald Stubbs, and appeared in a Colonial Office paper (CO), CO 129/489, in 1926. 48Robert Kotewall was an appointed member of both the Legislative and Executive Councils during the inter-war period. He was an important ally to the government and played a key role in settling the Strike; see Carroll, A Concise History, 99–105. 50The thriving Chinese and Eurasian families had a low regard for the Chinese language. They actually petitioned the Governor, John Pope Hennessy (1877–1883), to increase the teaching of English in the Central School at the expense of Chinese learning; see Anthony Sweeting and Edward Vickers, ‘Language and the History of Colonial Education: The Case of Hong Kong’, Modern Asian Studies 41 (2007): 15–16. 51Luk, ‘Chinese Culture in the Hong Kong Curriculum’, 659. 52Tsai, Hong Kong People’s History, 164–167; Sweeting and Vickers, ‘Language and the History of Colonial Education’, 21. 53Jun Fang and Xianjun Xiong, Xianggang Jiao Yu Tong Shi (Hong Kong: Ling Kee, 2008), 179–223. 54A possible explanation is that not many girls received schooling in the rural areas of the New Territories and demand for female teachers was not great; see Jun Fang, ‘Tai Po Vernacular Normal School (1926–1941): The Pioneer of Basic Education in the New Territories’, Education Journal 29, no. 1 (2001): 143. 55CO 129/489, paragraph 86. 56St Stephen Girls’ School and St. Paul Girls’ School were established in 1906 and 1925, respectively. As Anglo-Chinese schools, both were attended by girls of upper-class Chinese and their educational emphasis was on nurturing ‘modern young ladies’ by combining Eastern culture with Western knowledge; see Chiu, ‘Girls’ Education in Colonial Hong Kong’, 96–97. 57Fang, ‘The Vernacular Normal School for Women’, 60. 58The entrance requirement of this rural normal school was much lower than those of the other two urban schools, and some students had not even completed their primary schooling; see Fang, ‘Tai Po Vernacular Normal School’, 144. 59The calculation of the percentages is based on the tables that appear in the following papers: Fang, ‘Tai Po Vernacular Normal School’, 145; Fang, ‘The Vernacular Normal School for Women’, 59–60; Jun Fang ‘Vernacular Normal School for Men (1920–1940): An Important Cradle of Chinese Teachers in Early Twentieth Century Hong Kong’, Educational Research Journal 20, no. 1 (2005): 125–6. 60The contents of the two training programmes were very similar, except for the textbooks used in Classics. See Fang, ‘The Vernacular Normal School for Women’, 58–60; and Fang, ‘Vernacular Normal School for Men’, 129–31. 61Fang, ‘Tai Po Vernacular Normal School’, 141–2. 62Fang, ‘Vernacular Normal School for Men’, 125–6. 63Fang, ‘The Vernacular Normal School for Women’, 59. What matters here is not simply the sports ground but also the emphasis on physical education in VNW. Physical education was actually seen as a key component in the training of modern ‘young ladies’ – a middle class femininity – in the inter-war period; see Chiu, ‘Girls’ Education in Colonial Hong Kong’, 81–97. 64Fang, ‘The Vernacular Normal School for Women’, 60. 65Fang, ‘The Vernacular Normal School for Women’, 61. 66The figures quoted come from Fang, ‘The Vernacular School for Women’, 59; Fang, ‘Vernacular School for Men’, 128; and Fang, ‘Tai Po Vernacular School’, 145. 169 is the total number of graduates of the two male normal schools. 67The percentages recorded in the Annual Summaries before the Second World War were usually a combined figure for primary and secondary schools. Separate entries and statistics for primary and secondary schools, and their teachers, began to appear in the official data after the war. 68See E. Burney, Report on Education in Hong Kong (London: Published on behalf of the Government of Hong Kong by the Crown Agents for the Colonies, 1935), 21. 69According to Ford, some of the women graduates of the Education Department at The University of Hong Kong did not take up teaching but saw it as a preparation of motherhood and wifehood, see S. Ford, ‘Women, gender and HKU’ in An Impossible Dream: Hong Kong University from Foundation to Re-establishment, 1910–1950, ed. Chan Lau Kit-ching and Peter Cunich (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2002), 137. 70In 1931, 2,366 women were employed in ‘professional occupations’, the majority being teachers, nurses, and members of religious bodies; see Chiu, ‘Girls’ Education in Colonial Hong Kong’, 66. 71See Hong Kong Committee on the Training of Teachers, Report of the Committee on the Training of Teachers (Hong Kong: Government Printers, 1938), 163–8, in which some members found the content of training too academic and stressed the importance of English learning for vernacular teachers. 72A good example is the headmistress of the VNW, Madam Chan Yat Hing, who was promoted from a vernacular teacher to become the headmistress of VNW for 21 years. See Fang, ‘The Vernacular Normal School for Women’, 58. 73See Carroll, A Concise History, 127; Steve Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004), 145. 74A. Sweeting, A Phoenix Transformed: The Reconstruction of Education in Post-war Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1993), 84. 75Sweeting, A Phoenix Transformed, 95. 76When this primary education expansion programme officially ended in 1961, the total increase in primary school places was 313,000, and the original target was met a year earlier; Cheng, Government and Public Affairs, 5. 77 Annual Report, 1948/49, 29. 78 Annual Report, 1948/49, 40. 79 Annual Report, 1952/3, 7. In fact, in 1963 less than 8% of primary school leavers were able to secure a place in public secondary schools; see Hong Kong Government, Statement on Government’s Policy on the Re-organization of the Structure of Primary and Secondary Education (Hong Kong: Government Printer, 1963), 2. 80In 1957, a one-year course was also set up in Northcote Training College, the first teacher training college to provide a two-year course to certificated teachers. In 1960, a new teachers’ college, Sir Robert Black Training College, was also founded to aid the rapid development of primary education. 81 Annual Summary, 1956, 3. 82 Annual Report, 1952, 106. After graduation, student teachers were required to undergo two years of supervised training in approved schools before an official certificate was granted. 83There were nine core subjects and one elective in the one-year training course. All but the subject English were concerned with pedagogical skills. The information was obtained from a Special Exhibition entitled ‘Old Books. New Collections’ at the Hong Kong Museum of Education, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, 6 February 2010 to 22 April 2010. 84R.F. Simpson, Teacher Productivity and Professional Training (Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Council for Educational Research, 1966), 8. 85Calculations based on Annual Report, 1949 and 1970. 86Some scholars have also noted the continual use of various strategies to control and contain communist influence in the colony. See Beatrice Leung, ‘Political Impacts of Catholic Education in Decolonization: Hong Kong and Macau’ (CAPS Working Paper, Hong Kong: Lingnan College, 1998), no. 82 (10/98), 6–10; Sweeting, A Phoenix Transformed, 192–220; Sweeting & Vickers, ‘Language and the History of Colonial Education’, 8. 87Luk, Cong Rong Shu Xia, 203. 88Hong Kong Commission on Education, Report by R.M. Marsh and J.R. Sampson (Hong Kong: Government Printer, 1963), 65. 89Some untrained teachers might have received higher education in mainland China or gained a degree at a post-secondary institute in Hong Kong, but these qualifications were not recognised in the colony. 90Private schools were the main suppliers of primary school places in the 1950s and 1960s. They were gradually phased out after the introduction of compulsory and free education in 1971. 91The comparison was made by the Teachers’ Association; see Li Yiu-bor, ‘Editorial’, The Path of Learning: Journal of Hong Kong Teachers’ Association, no. 8 (1952): 3. Even in 1970, it was reported that the wages of teachers in private schools were about 25% of those received by teachers working in government and subsidised schools (Wah Kiu Yat Pao, 31 January 1970). 92Sweeting, A Phoenix Transformed, 120–38. 93See Hong Kong Legislative Council, Hong Kong Legislative Council Official Report of Proceedings (Hong Kong: Government Printer, 1960), 146. 94See Hong Kong Colonial Secretariat, Report on Women’s Salary Scales in the Public Service (Hong Kong: Government Printer, 1962), paragraph 2. 95Hong Kong Colonial Secretariat, Report on Women’s Salary Scales, paragraph 21. 96Hong Kong Colonial Secretariat, Report on Women’s Salary Scales, paragraph 42. 97Scott, Gender & the Politics of History, 49.
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