Education, internationalism and empire at the 1928 and 1930 Pan-Pacific Women's Conferences

Abstract

In order to explore education at the first two Pan-Pacific Women's Conferences, this article builds on Campbell and Sherington's account of education in Oceania and on empirical research undertaken by Selleck and others, along with relevant primary source material. It traces elements of empire as they played out in inter-war women's education and cultural internationalism. Following Paisley it argues that histories of ‘racial modernities’ articulated in and through women's education and circulating via practices of cultural internationalism were integral to histories of ‘race’ and nation.

Keywords:

• cultural internationalism
• empire
• Pan-Pacific
• women's education
• modernities

Notes on contributor

Joyce Goodman is Professor of History of Education, Pro-Vice Chancellor and Dean of the Faculty of Education, Health and Social Care at the University of Winchester. Her main research interests are women's education, internationalism and empire. She is a former editor of History of education, past president of the History of Education Society GB and former secretary of the International Standing Conference for the History of Education.

Notes

1. Oceania is inclusive of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands (Borthwick 2007). Following Akami (2008, p. 14), I use a notion of an imagined Pacific Community based on 1920s American understandings.