Abstract
The Catholic schools in former colonies have attracted the
attention of the social sciences over three main aspects: the
construction of political-religious relationships, the role
played by these schools in the socialization of young scholars,
and the affinity of colonized peoples with sacred and profane
knowledge, especially in written form. In this paper, with
reference to the first aspect, I analyze the evolution of
Catholic schools of the Ivory Coast, a Frenchspeaking country of
West Africa, from the colonial period until 1992. A major
political event characterizes this evolution: the attainment of
independence in 1960, which not only did not lead to the
suppression of Catholic schools, but, on the contrary, promoted
them. The article is particularly concerned with knowing which
types of political-religious relationships were supported by
this permanence of Ivory Coast Catholic schools, and,
conversely, which it helped to construct and to remake.
