This book traces the journey taken by the Canadian Province of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions / Religieuses de Notre Dame des Missions (RNDM), from its establishment in Manitoba in 1898 to 2008, when the congregation as a whole redefined its mission and vision. Using archival research conducted in Canada, England, and Italy and incorporating oral interviews with RNDM sisters, this book explores the historical work of the sisters in schools and the part they played in the developing educational state.

The congregation’s activities in schools, first in Manitoba and Saskatchewan and later in Ontario and Quebec, show how the sisters’ educational work related to the social characteristics of the communities they worked in (e.g., those of French Canadian settlers, British and continental European immigrants, and the Métis population). The Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions examines the impact of Vatican II in the 1960s and into the 2000s as well as the dismantling of neo-scholasticism and the process of secularization of consciousness in society at large. These emerging issues led the congregation to examine its individual and collective identity at the intersection of feminist theology, eco-spirituality, and a critique of Western cosmology.

Rosa Bruno-Jofré is a professor in the Faculty of Education at Queen's University. James Scott Johnston is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at Queen's University. Gonzalo Jover is a professor in the Department of Educational Theory and H

Rosa Bruno-Jofré's profile page

"This well-written and researched institutional history presents a solid academic view of a woman religious teaching community from its nineteenth century conservative roots to its renewal since the Second Vatican Council."

Historical Studies in Education, Vol. 33, No. 1

"The Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions is a landmark work that captures the complexity of the transnational and transtemporal development of an educational institution between 1898 and 2008."

<em>Paedagogica Historica</em>