In recent years historians of education have been employing a transnational lens to study women educators whose lives and work extended beyond national boundaries. Briggs McCormick and Way (2008, 633) propose that a 'transnational sensibilty lets scholars see the movement of goods, individuals and ideas happending in a context in which gender, class and race operate simultaneously'. Women educators transnational careers feature in recent edited books as well as special editions of historical jounrals but mostly focus on the nineteenth and early twentieth century (Fitzgerald and Smyth 2014, Mayer and Arrendondo 2020). Following th Second World War, the increasing professionalisation of transnational humanitarian organisations provided a new field of work for women teachers and public health and social work professionals: Fielden (2015) states that nearly 200 new child welfare agencies were working overseas between 1945 and 1949 alone, but little is known about women teachers in these organisations.

Fitzgerald and Smyth's (2014) edited collection highlights solidarity, collegiality and leadership among women educators working to influence social change. However, social change is not always progressive. Some educators imposed and cultivated cultural and educational practices in their host countries (Briggs, McCormick and Way 2008; Fielden 2015; Mayer and Arrendondo 2020). Although the complexities of female agency are highlighted in the aforementioned research, insifficuent attention has been paid to the ways in which nationla identity mediates women educators' work at home and aboraod. Grosvenor (1999, 244) posits that 'there is a constant interpaly between Self and Other in the construction of national identity'. Continuing in thie vein, my presentation explores Minette jee's working life as a progressive educator across multiple sites in Britian, Morocca and Australia from the late 1930s to the 1980s.

The presentation is framed as a transnational history and explores three specific periods of Jee's transnational work, each of which is located in its temporal, geographic and socio-politcal context. The first section focuses on Jee as a teacher educator at the Malayan Teachers Training College on the outskirts of Liverpool in 1950s Britain. The second section interrogates her work as a 'daycare consultant' in Morrocco from 1959-1962 when she was employed with a transnational humanitarian organisation called the American Joint Distribution Committee. The fianl section shifts ot Jee's works as an administrator in the Kindergarten Union of South Australia from 1976-1978.

Jee's working life was enmeshed in national and international politics and I demonstrate that there was a constant struggle between Self and Other in her work. She subscribed to a hierarchical world view that some peoples and nations were more 'backward' than others, and her assumptions carried over into her relationships and work in Britian and overseas. Jee's decision-making about progressive education was intertwined with her national identity in each context.

The presentation is based on archival research and the traditional historical method of combing documents, following leads from one source to another, examining clusters of associated themes and judging their relative significance. In keeping with feminist methodology, the context in which the documents were produced, their ideological underpinnings and purpose will be taken into account. All records are shaped by the political contexts in which they were produced and by the cultural and ideological assumptions that underpin them. The archival sources for this paper are both sparse and diverse. Like many women educators, Minette Jee left no personal papers but glimpses of her career are recorded in newsletters of her Alma Mata, Gipsy Hill Training College in England. her annual reports to the American Joint Distribution Committee between 1959 and 1962 provide insights into her understandings of child development and progressive education, as well as the operation of day care centres in Morocco. Likewise, her offical reports were located in the archives of the Kindergarten Union of South Australia. Finally, she wrote a chapter on early childhood education in England which was published in 1983, and canvassed her of progressive education and pedagogical practices in the British Context.

The main outcome of this presentation will be to add to our understandings of transnationalism in the history of education with particular reference to the work of women educators. The paper will also shed light on the dynamics of progressive education in a range of contexts including a voluntary organisation which is an area in need of much more research. In relation to Minette Jee, I highlight how the struggle between Self and Other was intimately related to national identity in the post war decades.

Briggs, McCormick and Way, 2008, 'Transnationalism: A category of analysis', American Quarterly 60/3: 625-648. Fielden, 2015. Raising the world: Child welfare in the American century, Harvard University Press. Fitzgerald and Smyth, 2014. Women educators, leaders and activists, 1900-1960, Palgrave. Grosvenor, 1999. 'There is no place like home: Education and the making of national identity, History of Education 28/3: 235-250. Mayer and Arrendondo 2020. Women, power relations and education in a transnational world, Palgrave.