2024/01/26 by Stella Meng Wang
Social Sciences · #Asian American and Pacific Histories #Japanese History and Culture #Philippine History and Culture
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/heq.2023.52
openalex publication_date 2024/01/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
Abstract This paper uses the writings of European teachers and Chinese students at St. Stephen’s Girls’ College in Hong Kong—published in English periodicals of its school magazine and local English newspapers—to examine how the school tactically positioned itself as an educational site for the “useful women of China” during a period in Republican China that was simultaneously defined as a time of “cosmopolitan modernity” and “national rebuilding.” St. Stephen’s brand of usefulness responded to the “New Woman” phenomenon in Republican China, and it was defined through the narrative of science learning and a sense of service. Through its progressive science curriculum and social service branch, the school helped prepare a class of “career women” for China. It was in educating this class that St. Stephen’s, in resonance with the colonial state, envisioned its role in the shaping of modern China.