Colonial Education as a Mode of Governance in the Philippines Under U.S. Rule, 1900-1916
Abstract
Concentrating on colonial education policy in the Philippines during the period of U.S. rule, this thesis explores the dynamics of knowledge circulation – namely the transfer and continuities of racial preconceptions and administrative techniques – within the American imperial enterprise. Mapping the emergence of the U.S. colonial administration in the islands with the establishment of the Taft Commission in 1900 to the move Filipino self-rule with the passage of the Philippine Autonomy Act in 1916, this thesis assesses elite commentaries and discourses concerning the management of non-white subject populations and the contingent manner in which these policies corresponded to or differed in their formulation and execution according to their respective zones of application. Spanning the contours of knowledge transfers in the trans-imperial and intra-imperial arenas, it analyses the interactions and exchanges between congruent and disparate colonial jurisdictions – both within the U.S. empire and among the neighboring possessions of their European peers.