Whereas most of the previous historical research on colonial education in Belgian Congo concentrates on the educational action at the so-called macro- and meso-level, our actual interest focus on the educational act at the micro-level. Our project will not be in the first place a reconstruction of the pursued educational policy, but the emphasis will lay on the daily reality of school life. Especially the contact between the coloniser and the colonised will thus be replaced by "classroom history". Ge-ographically our research focuses on the Mbandaka-area (formerly Coquilhatville).
One of the research questions concerns the way the "pedagogical paradox" revea-led itself in the colonial school environment. This paradox amply illustrates the fact that educational goals are often at odds with the educational processes once they are put into practice. This brings a constant tension in the field between higher pedago-gy, which normatively defines what is or is not pedagogically correct, and the lower pedagogy of the classroom in which one is forced to compromise between educatio-nal ideals on the one hand and the demands of the actual reality in which teaching is embedded on the other. This situation can a fortiori be extrapolated to educational work in the colonial context.
It seems that the pedagogical paradox was intensified on a micro-educational le-vel. This intensification resulted precisely from the contradiction between "assimila-tionism" (or emancipation) and "indigenism" that was generated by the hegemonial process at work in the application of the civilising filter through schooling and edu-cation. Even though the colonial modernist project set for itself the task of educating the "darker races", the colonial "heavenly mission to civilise" clearly had its limits as well. As such, education also presented a tangible danger for the survival for colo-nialism itself.
Not only the tension between educational theory and classroom practice will be a topic of discussion, but also the "grammar of schooling", the regular structures and rules that organise the work of instruction, will deserve attention. Judging by the fact that this "grammar of schooling seems remarkably durable in a western educational context, one can suppose that for instance the timetable, the furniture and the layout of the classrooms in colonial schools were very similar to those in their western counterparts. However, the central question is not that much to what extend the "grammar schooling" in Belgium and its colonies was alike, but the implications of this similarity. Certainly in this respect it is crucial not to limit he educational act to the immediate school environment. Missionaries were indeed educating their Congo-lese children continuously.

 The limited source material from the side of the Congolese forces us to concentra-te on the supply side of the educational act, on the intentions and mentality of the missionaries at the level of the chalkboard. For answering these questions concerning educational methods and intentions, together with the study of the classroom climate all kind of sources will be used: scholl inspection reports , schoolbooks, correspon-dence, eye-witness reports, (semi-)scientific literature on education in the Congo, photographs, educational programs and other policy documents, popularising articles for the Congolese audience, missionary magazines,...The unedited sources will be found in congregational archives in Congo, in Belgium and Italy (Catholic congrega-tions) and the United Kingdom and the United States (Protestant congregations); in government archives in Belgium and Congo (e.g. "Bureau de l`enseignement catho-lique" in Kinshasa); and in the Aequatoria Archives in Bamanya (available on micro-fiche, cf. http://www.uia.ac.be/aequatoria/)

 Doctoral dissertation