EDUCATION AND CHANGE IN MACAO’S PORTUGUESE COMMUNITY
This paper investigates education in Macao and asks whether there was a single formal educational system for Macao’s Portuguese-speaking population, and how education reflected changing Western presence in China and Asia. It focuses on formal schooling for the Macanese or Macao-born Portuguese desce...
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| Published in: | Review of Culture |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Articles |
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Instituto Cultural de Macau
July 2002
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| Online Access: | https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40003/2684 |
| Summary: | This paper investigates education in Macao and asks whether there was a single formal educational system for Macao’s Portuguese-speaking population, and how education reflected changing Western presence in China and Asia. It focuses on formal schooling for the Macanese or Macao-born Portuguese descent—educated in Portuguese, English, or, less often, Chinese—and traced from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The analysis considers education promoted by missionaries and clergy within the Padroado framework, by the Portuguese government, and by local communities, and situates it within Macao’s three geopolitical roles: a center of missionary activity for the diocese; a commercial settlement whose system of governance shifted after the treaty ports; and a small, precarious outpost where municipal authorities asserted their own educational priorities. Methodologically, the study relies on institutional histories, episcopal and municipal archives, and the curricular trajectories of early schools, notably the Escola de ler e escrever (1572) that became University College in 1594. The author argues that rather than a monolithic Macanese educational system, there existed multiple, overlapping trajectories shaped by mission-driven curricula, clerical and civil administration needs, and the demands of a cosmopolitan economy. Conclusions highlight education as a flexible instrument of Western presence, producing a locally informed elite capable of mediating cross-cultural interaction and shaping Macao’s evolving identity within China and the wider Asia-Pacific region. |
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| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |