Prof. Scott Gavorsky's essay included in new collection on 19th-century French institutions

Department of History Professor Scott A. Gavorsky's latest essay, "L'Etat comme propriétaire? Schools as Property in Nineteenth-Century France," is included in a new collection entitled Institutions and Power in Nineteenth-Century French Literature and Culture, edited by David Evans and Kate Griffiths. The collection was the result of a conference held at Cambridge University, and is now available from Rodopi Press.

Gavorsky's work examines the creation of the concept of schools as a form of absolute property under French law. Originally designed in 1816 to encourage investment by private groups in public education following the French Revolution and Napoleonic periods, treating schools as the personal property of a founding individual or group created significant problems for the French state in nationalizing education policy for the remainder of the 19th century. Once schools became seen as property, demands of the state to select teachers, set curriculum standards and even close the schools could be resisted by an appeal to the "owner's" property rights. Given that many of these schools operated similarly to modern American charter schools, the French example provides insight into the inadvertent limitations on public policy that are created in an effort to encourage greater private-public partnerships.