Dr. Catherine Ramey explores missionary education in Angola, 1880s - 1920s.
Catherine Ramey successfully defended her dissertation on Friday, August 14, 2026. Entitled, "An Educational Mission: Gender, Schools, and Canadian Missionaries in Central Angola, 1880s–1920s," the thesis examines the mission education developed by the Canada Congregational Foreign Missionary Society (CCFMS) in central Angola between the 1880s and 1920s.
With a focus on missionary school curricula, Catherine explores the implications of the gendered and racist dimensions of the CCFMS’s mission agenda, especially industrial trades as “manly” occupations and domestic work as “appropriate” labour for girls and women. Drawing on transnational and global frameworks, Catherine argues that Angolans were integral to the establishment of the West Central Africa (WCA) mission, and the mission itself represented a convergence of missionary and Angolan values, knowledges, and desires.