The specific situation in the Prussian partition area on the eve of the WW I differed considerably from the one prevailing in the Russian and Austrian partitions. The territories in question were inhabited by a Polish and German population, with the Poles constituting about 46% of all residents. Prussia treated the appropriated lands as a guarantee of its position as a power, and thus aimed at their complete integration with the monarchy. This purpose was supposed to be attained by a Germanisation campaign and colonisation. The Polish community effectively opposed this policy by creating a system of various organisations, from economic to cultural. After the outbreak of the war the authorities, fearing an an-mobilisation campaign , interned a large group of Polish activists. The mobilisation, however, was undisturbed. The Poles adopted a realistic attitude, well aware of the fact that any form of resistance would end tragically. The political arena witnessed a complex game played by the authorities and Polish politicians. The Polish politicians who enjoyed authority, created an Inter-Party Circle, whose aim was to oppose all forms of cooperation with the Central Powers; great hopes for a change of circumstances that would prove more beneficial for Poland, were attached to attempts at establishing contacts with France and the United Kingdom.
The nineteenth century colonial setting of Aotearoa NZ is the most distant from the cradle of European Enlightenment that sparked new understandings of childhood, learning and education and spearheaded new approaches to the care and education of young children outside of the family home. The broader theme of the Enlightenment was about progress and the possibilities of the ongoing improvement of peoples and institutions. The young child was seen as a potent force in this transformation and a raft of childhood institutions, including the 19th century infant school, kindergarten, and crèche were a consequence. The colonisation and settlement of Aotearoa NZ by European settlers coincided with an era in which the potency of new aspirations for new kinds of institutions for young children seeded. It is useful in the 21st century to reframe the various waves of colonial endeavour and highlight the dynamic interfaces of being colonised for the indigenous populations; being a colonial for the settler populations; and the power and should be purposed of the colonising cultures of Europe. It can be argued that in the context of ECE neither the indigenous nor settler populations of Aotearoa NZ were passive recipients of European ECE ideas but, separately and together, forged new understandings of childhood and its institutions; enriched and shaped by the lessons learned in the colonial setting of Aotearoa NZ.
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