The School House and American Empire in the Philippines

Abstract

Sarah Steinbock-Pratt’s Educating the Empire: American Teachers and Contested Colonization in the Philippines is an excellent major contribution to the scholarship on U.S. empire. Steinbock-Pratt makes a compelling argument that “schools were a microcosm for the colonial state” and that “establishment of an educational system in the Philippines created a model for colonial education that was used to justify America’s presence abroad and demonstrate that American empire was inherently ‘benevolent.’” This in-depth study about the U.S. teachers sent from the United States to introduce U.S. education to public schools in the colony gives us important insights into the colonial relationship—as the schoolhouse becomes “an important site, therefore of colonial negotiation and contestation” (251, 2, 191). Through seven meticulously-researched, empirical chapters that cover the perspectives of the U.S. teachers (both male and female, white and black) and their relationships with Filipino local elites, students, and local politicians, as well as Filipino students’ responses to them, the book convincingly demonstrates how “struggles between students and teachers can be understood as micro-contests over colonization; they not only mirrored the battles occurring on the national political stage, but also shaped the tenor and terms of those battles. The politics of the schoolhouse influenced national politics as both a symbol of the colonial state and as a primary locus of imperial power” (291).