Mass Education and the Limits of State Building, c.1870-1930

National governments today see schooling as a key instrument for the fostering of national identity and active citizenship. In developing countries, the goals of universal literacy and mass schooling are recognized as the basis for economic progress and political stability. In this book, the authors offer an international insight into the way children were schooled for citizenship in Britain, Europe and other parts of the world in the nineteenth and early twentieth century when states first seriously invested in the provision of mass education. They show that there is no simple axis between schooling and the creation of citizens. All round the world, the state’s goals were hard to achieve in the face of teacher agency, localism, religious influence and parental priorities, as well of course as the perennial problems of funding.