Can the Church Be Decolonized? Holy Cross Education in Bangladesh

This book explores the decolonization of Holy Cross education in Bangladesh. It reveals how the church’s educational mission adapted to decolonization processes over time, including Bangladesh’s handover from British India to Pakistan in 1947, and its independence and national development from 1971 to the present day. This book describes the ongoing decolonization of Catholic education in Bangladesh, with the use of archival texts as well as interviews with local and foreign personnel, who are based in two of the most prestigious Holy Cross educational institutions in Dhaka. Providing a close examination of the impact of colonization on Bangladeshi education, it serves as a useful reference to students, scholars, and educators of Bangladeshi and South Asian studies, and postcolonial and decolonial educational and religious studies.

Md. Shaikh Farid is Professor in the Department of World Religions and Culture at the University of Dhaka. He holds a Ph.D. on missionary education in Bangladesh from the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong. He also holds an Erasmus Mundus Master in Bioethics. His research interests include Catholic education, missionary education in Bangladesh, comparative education, ethics of reproductive technologies, and ethical issues in organ donation. He is Author of the book Caodaism: A Syncretistic Religion of Vietnam. His work has been published in Asian Bioethics Review, HEC Forum, International Studies in Catholic Studies, Religions, Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics, Journal of Sociology, Arts Faculty Journal, and Dhaka University Studies.

Liz Jackson is Professor and Assistant Dean Research in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong. She is also President of the Comparative Education Society of Hong Kong, Fellow and Past President of the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia, and Former Director of the Comparative Education Research Centre. She has published widely in philosophy and global studies of education. Her recent books include Contesting Education and Identity in Hong Kong (2021), Beyond Virtue: The Politics of Educating Emotions (2020), and Questioning Allegiance: Resituating Civic Education (2019).