Educational Oases in the Desert, livre ebook

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), a Paris-based Jewish organization, founded dozens of primary schools throughout the Middle East. Many were the first formal educational institutions for local Jewish children. In addition to providing secular education, the schools attempted to change local customs and "regenerate" or "uplift" communities. Educational Oases in the Desert explores the largely forgotten history of the AIU's schools for girls in Ottoman Iraq. Drawing on extensive archival research, Jonathan Sciarcon argues that teachers viewed female education through a gendered lens linked to their understanding of an ideal modern society. As the primary educators of children, women were seen as society's key agents of socialization. The AIU thus concluded that its boys' schools would never succeed in creating polished, westernized men so long as women remained uneducated, leading to the creation of schools for girls. Sciarcon shows how headmistresses acted not just as educators but also as models of modernity, trying to impart new moral and aesthetic norms onto students.
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Pioneering Female Jewish Education: The AIU in Baghdad, 1864–1895
2. From Danon to Sutton: The Baghdad Girls’ School, 1896–1899
3. Making Adjustments: Oro Sémach’s Tenure in Baghdad, 1899–1904
4. From the Baghdad Girls’ School to the Laura Kadoorie School for Girls, 1905–1915
5. The AIU Girls’ Schools in Hilla, Mosul, and Basra, 1911–1915
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index