VIII. Creating A New Female Space: The Basel Mission Girls’ Boarding Schools

Abstract

Around 1860, a reform of the Basel Mission's schools on the Gold Coast marked the beginning of the establishment of an institutionalised education system. This chapter provides a brief sketch of the educational reforms which also led to the establishing of the boarding schools. From 1860 a major modernisation was to take place in the educational sector of the Basel Mission on the Gold Coast. In the context of the institutionalisation discussed so far in this chapter, commensality was an element which, especially for J.G. Auer, had a function of its own in the new educational policy. Clothing played a crucial role in the concept of middle-class femininity. The girls' boarding schools provided a new space in which the various actors, junior and senior, male and female, European and from the Gold Coast negotiated over innovations with regard to proper womanhood.Keywords: Basel Mission; Christian; educational reforms; European; Gold Coast