The U.S. colonial education project : race, citizenship & schools in the Philippines, 1901-1916

Abstract

This dissertation provides an administrative history of the formal system of education the U.S. American colonial government established in the Philippines during the 1901-1916 period. It focuses on the differences between the schools provided to the majority population, Hispanicized Catholics, and to the minority populations, Muslims and animists. The U.S. designed a broad-based school system for Hispanicized Catholics that focused on literacy and preparation for eventual self-rule, which reflected the demands made by revolutionaries fighting the U.S. for independence during the Philippine-American War. Muslims and animists were not involved in the war, and the U.S. established schools on a much smaller scale for them, which focused narrowly on industrial training. There is no scholarship that examines schools for all three groups in one analytic field. This dissertation contends that separating the history of education for any one group from the others obscures the actual scope and impact of U.S. colonial education in the Philippines. When the full colonial education project is examined, it is evident that race was central in decisions regarding school policies and practices. The racial differentiation of "Christians" and "non-Christians," and more specifically, the elevation of Christians over non-Christians both discursively and administratively, was central to all aspects of U.S. rule in the Philippines. This dissertation argues that the U.S. colonial education project played a critical role in negotiating and articulating colonial understandings of racial differences and defending the different roles Christians, Muslims, and animists would hold within the future Philippine nation. At the beginning of its colonial rule over the Philippines, the U.S. did not have clearly articulated understandings of the culturally diverse people of the archipelago, but it recognized "racial" differences between them, and argued that the archipelago was not ready for independence because of its racial diversity. The U.S. made a shared national identity essential to the creation of an independent Philippines. Yet between 1901 and 1912, the colonial education project deepened divisions between Christians and non-Christians by providing each group with different kinds of formal education. Later, in 1913 when Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated as president and colonial policy shifed toward granting the Philippines greater autonomy, the education project began focusing on rapidly assimilating non-Christians into the Christian Filipino nation. Schools played a key role in preparing Muslims and animists for their role as minority communities within the Christian identified Philippine nation. In both eras, education supported the discursive and political marginalization of non-Christians. This dissertation analyzes the colonial education project in the Philippines within the broader context of education for "non-white" people across the U.S. empire. It uses the term the "U.S. colonial education reform network" to describe the linkages between people, organizations, governments, and publications concerned with education for non-white people living in the U.S. empire. The network was established through conferences and journals, and strengthened by the personal and political relationships of various actors. The network fostered discussions and debates about race and education among (almost exclusively) white reformers across the U.S. empire, and provided forums for sharing the education policies and practices directed at various non-white peoples. This dissertation argues that the colonial education project in the Philippines both shaped and was shaped by the ideas generated in the network, and that developments in U.S. colonial education in the Philippines cannot be understood outside this broader imperial framework.--Author's abstract