Die Kulturmission der weißen Frauen – Das Erbe der Kolonialfrauenschulen am Beispiel der Kolonialfrauenschule in Bad Weilbach

Abstract

The Cultural Mission of White Women
This contribution examines the colonial women’s school in Bad Weilbach (1911–1914) as a largely overlooked site at the intersection of colonial ambitions, the bourgeois women’s movement, and the early professionalization of social work. Drawing on historical sources, it shows how these institutions functioned as training sites for a colonial „civilizing mission,“ in which white, middle-class women were specifically prepared for their role as agents of racialized and gendered social order. The analysis demonstrates that feminist emancipatory aspirations were closely intertwined with colonial-racist and population-political interests and operated as a form of exclusionary emancipation. At the same time, the local embedding of the school in Wiesbaden is revealed as part of colonial propaganda. The article argues that colonial women’s schools can be understood as early training sites for social professions and represent a largely unexamined colonial legacy of social work.

Keywords: colonial women’s schools, history of social work, women’s movement, colonialism, training, emancipation

Bibliography: Dierkes, Wiebke: Die Kulturmission der weißen Frauen – Das Erbe der Kolonialfrauenschulen am Beispiel der Kolonialfrauenschule in Bad Weilbach, Zeitschrift für erziehungswissenschaftliche Migrationsforschung (ZeM), 1-2026, pp. 62-75.