SS6074 - Race, Empire and Education (2016/17)
Module specification | Module approved to run in 2016/17 | ||||||||||||
Module title | Race, Empire and Education | ||||||||||||
Module level | Honours (06) | ||||||||||||
Credit rating for module | 15 | ||||||||||||
School | School of Social Professions | ||||||||||||
Total study hours | 150 | ||||||||||||
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Assessment components |
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Running in 2016/17(Please note that module timeslots are subject to change) | No instances running in the year |
Module summary
The module will examine the significance of the expanding British empire of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in shaping the perceptions and identities of both the British and those over whom the empire exerted colonial power. It will analyse the assumptions and ideologies produced by colonial relationships historically; examine the extent to which these continue to shape attitudes and world-views; and consider the role of education as a medium contributing to, or counteracting their influence.
In particular, the module will examine the salience of ‘race’ and its increasing importance in the imperial experience in the nineteenth century, as well as its social, cultural and political legacy in the twentieth century.
Module aims
Race, Empire and Education aims to:
• Provide a general introduction to the history of the British Empire
• Provide a detailed understanding of the meaning of ‘race’ and the growth racial thinking in the nineteenth century
• Introduce students to the role of education in transmitting or contesting racialised assumptions
• Introduce students to debates about the benefits or otherwise of the British Empire
• Explore the impact of empire on the formation of a British identity
Syllabus
The module includes an historical introduction to the British Empire and examination of the Victorian ‘world-view’; the practicalities and consequences of colonial rule; and the legacy of Britain’s imperial past in the post-war twentieth century.
The module will begin with a broad overview of the development and extent of the British Empire in three phases, from 1815 to 1870, 1870-1914 and 1914-1945. Students will consider the economic and technical pre-eminence enjoyed by the British in the first two of these periods, as well as the challenges in the last of them. Students will examine the cultural, social and political consequences of the relationships forged between Britain and its overseas possessions, analysing the significance of factors such as the rise of racial pseudo-science, the development of anthropology and ethnography and the emergence of social Darwinism, in informing colonial policy and governance of the ‘subject races’. Students will consider the ways in which knowledge of the empire was gleaned or communicated formally through schools’ syllabuses (specifically history and geography), informally through public exhibitions and the growth of museums, and implicitly through fiction, comics and other forms of popular culture.
British colonialism will be considered as a relationship in which (however unequal and exploitative) colonised and coloniser both contested and contributed to cultural exchange, but in which there was a distinct hierarchy of value attached to culture, knowledge and technical expertise. The implications and effects of cultural superiority will be considered, for example, in terms of the education of those groomed to exercise colonial power, as well as for those receiving a colonial education that transmitted British norms and content at the expense of indigenous terms of reference. The module will explore the idea that these experiences may have a resonance that extends far beyond the historical periods in which they were forged.
The module will then focus on the importance of empire in the ‘national psyche’ and the impact of the relatively rapid loss of empire after 1945. In particular, there will be a focus on the impact of the empire ‘coming home’ through post-war immigration, and students will examine how Britain coped with economic adjustment and eventual decline at the same time as having to accommodate the peoples of the colonies. The module will consider the implications of these social adjustments through a series of implicit presumptions and explicit concepts gaining currency at different times, and the extent to which these informed either educational policy or schools’ practise: such as ‘colour-blindness’, ‘assimilation’, ‘integration’, ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘anti-racism’. This will lead to consideration of debates about curriculum content, especially as provoked in the 1980s by the introduction of the National Curriculum, and will be considered in terms of whether schools have a role in building, supporting, or promoting national identities and, specifically, the role of history in such a context.
Finally, the module will invite students to consider what attitudes, presumptions, or other ‘messages’ about ‘race’ and or ethnicity may be communicated by, or read from, contemporary society and what role education may have in addressing problems these may give rise to.
Learning and teaching
Students will be taught through a combination of lectures, seminars and workshops, supplemented by material available on WebLearn and in-class tasks focused on primary sources.
Learning outcomes
On completion of the module students will be able to:
1. Communicate an informed understanding of the development of the British Empire
2. Offer an informed discussion of the growth and cultural impact of the British Empire on both the coloniser and the colonised
3. Analyse the ways in which notions of racialised perceptions have been, and can be, communicated through forms of popular culture
4. Analyse the relative merits of multiculturalism
Assessment strategy
Formative:
• Occasional short written responses to claims or questions arising from the respective week’s focus
• Bullet point summary of a chosen primary source, undertaken as homework, discussed in class and contributing to summative critical analysis.
Summative:
• 1500 word critical analysis of a primary source
• 2000 word essay
Bibliography
Castle,K. (1996) Britannia’s Children: Reading Colonialism Through Children’s Books and Magazines, Manchester Univ. Press
Coombes, A.E. (1994) Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination, Yale Univ. Press
Eldridge, C.C. (1996) The Imperial Experience: From Carlyle to Forster, MacMillan Press
Gillborn, D. (1990) ‘Race’ Ethnicity and Education: Teaching and Learning in Multi-Ethnic Schools, Routledge Falmer
Hall, C. & Rose, S.O. (2006) At Home With Empire: Metropolitan Culture and the Imperial World, Cambridge Univ. Press
Heathorn, S. (2000) For Home, Country, and Race: Constructing Gender, Class, and Englishness in the Elementary School, 1880-1914, Univ. of Toronto
Johnson, R. (2003) British Imperialism, Palgrave
Levell, N. (2000) Oriental Visions: Exhibitions, Travel, and Collecting in the Victorian Age, The Horniman Museum
Mackenzie, J.M. (ed.) (1986) Imperialism and Popular Culture, Manchester Univ. Press
Mangan, J.A. (1988) ‘Benefits Bestowed’?: Education and British Imperialism, Manchester Univ. Press
Mangan, J.A. (1993) The Imperial Curriculum: Racial Images and Education in the British Colonial Experience, Routledge
Rich, P.B. (1990) Race and Empire in British Politics, Cambridge Univ. Press
Richards, J. (ed) (1989) Imperialism and Juvenile Literature, Manchester Univ. Press
Sansom, J. (2005) Race and Empire, Pearson Education Ltd
Streets, H. (2004) Martial Races: The Military, Race and Masculinity in British Imperial Culture, 1857-1914, Manchester University Press
Thompson, A. (2005) The Empire Strikes Back? : The Impact of Imperialism on Britain from the Mid-Nineteenth Century, Pearson Education Ltd
Willinskey, J. (1998) Learning to Divide the World: Education at Empire’s End, Univ. of Minnesota Press