Corrie Decker received her B.A. in history from Bryn Mawr College and her M.A. and Ph.D. in African history from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to coming to UC Davis, she was an assistant professor at Lehman College, CUNY (2007 to 2009). She is completing a book on gender, development, and education on the Swahili Coast. She has also begun researching the history of sex education in East Africa.

Research Interests

Twentieth-century social and cultural history of East Africa, history of childhood and youth, history of education, gender and sexuality, colonialism, Islam, development.

Selected Publications

“Reading, Writing, and Respectability: How Schoolgirls Developed Modern Literacies in Colonial Zanzibar,” International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Spring 2010) 

“Fathers, Daughters, and Institutions: Coming of Age in Mombasa’s Colonial Schools” in Girlhood: A Global History, edited by Jennifer Helgren and Colleen Vasconcellos (Rutgers University Press, 2010) 

“Wives or Workers: Negotiating the Social Contract between Female Teachers and the Colonial State in Zanzibar,” co-authored with Elisabeth McMahon, Journal of Women’s History, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Summer 2009)

Course History

• HIS115B, History of East and Central Africa
• HIS102O, Girlhood in the Modern World
• HIS 115C, History of Southern Africa
• HIS 116, Africa and the Development Discourse
• HIS 102O, Autobiographies and Biographies in African History
• HIS 115D, Colonialism in Africa
• HIS 103, History of Sexuality in Africa
• HIS 15, Intro to African History