Article contents
A Comparative Perspective on Recent Trends in the History of Education in Canada
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
Extract
In May 1985 the Canadian Historical Association gave over a major part of its meeting to the history of education. Joint sessions were sponsored by CHA, educational history groups, and those primarily interested in the history of the family or childhood. This program culminated fifteen years of intensive research into educational history on both sides of the Atlantic. Although there have been comparative histories of education and historiographical articles concerning the history of education in one or another country, there have been few attempts to compare historiographical trends of several countries. This article will compare trends in English, Canadian, and French historiography, which offer a stark contrast, and it will allude to trends concerning the United States, Europe generally, and Quebec within the framework of comparative historiography.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © 1986 by the History of Education Society
References
1 Donald Wilson, J., “Canadian Historiography,” History of Education Quarterly 9 (Spring 1969): 88–96.Google Scholar
2 Child, Alan H., “The History of Canadian Education: A Bibliographical Note,” Histoire sociale/Social History 8 (Nov. 1971): 105–17.Google Scholar
3 Donald Wilson, J., Stamp, Robert M., and Audet, Louis-Philippe, eds., Canadian Education: A History (Toronto, 1970); Gaffield, Chad, “Review,” Labour/Le travailleur 8/9 (1981–82): 401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 Gidney, Robert D., “Elementary Education in Upper Canada: A Reassessment,” Ontario History 65 (1973): 1969–85. In a number of joint articles, first with the late Douglas Lawr, later with Millar, W. P., Gidney has revised the historiography of schooling in Ontario.Google Scholar
5 Grew, Raymond, Harrigan, Patrick J., and Whitney, James B., “La Scolarisation en France, 1892–1906,” Annates: Economies, sociétes, civilisations (Jan.-Feb. 1984): 116–57. Kaestle, Carl F. and Vinovskis, Maris A., Education and Social Change in Nineteenth-Century Massachusetts (New York, 1980).Google Scholar
6 Ringer, Fritz K., Education and Society in Modern Europe (Bloomington, Ind., 1979).Google Scholar
7 Phillips, Charles E., The Development of Education in Canada (Toronto, 1957); Adams, Howard, The Education of Canadians, 1800–1867: The Roots of Separatism (Montreal, 1968). For a discussion of French historiography see Harrigan, Patrick J., “Historians and Compilers Joined: The Historiography of the 1970s and the French Enquêtes of the Nineteenth Century,” in The Making of Frenchmen: Current Directions in the History of Education in France, 1679–1979, ed. Baker, Donald N. and Harrigan, Patrick J. (Waterloo, Ontario, 1980), 3–22. For a full bibliography of French historical literature concerning French education see the “Bibliography” in the same book, 617–44.Google Scholar
8 See Donald Wilson's, J. fine review of this literature “From Social Control to Family Strategies: Some Observations on Recent Trends in Canadian Educational History,” History of Education Review 13 (Spring 1984), revised and reprinted as “Some Observations on Recent Trends in Canadian Educational History,” in An Imperfect Past: Education and Society in Canadian History, ed. Donald Wilson, J. (Vancouver, 1984): 1–29.Google Scholar
9 See Harrigan, , “Historians,” 3–6, for a fuller discussion and citations.Google Scholar
10 Katz, Michael B. and Mattingly, Paul H., eds., Education and Social Change: Themes from Ontario's Past (New York, 1975).Google Scholar
11 Bailyn, Bernard, “The Challenge of Modern Historiography,” American Historical Review 87 (Feb. 1982): 1–24; Stone, Lawrence, “The Revival of Narrative: Reflections on a New Old History,” Past and Present No. 85 (Nov. 1979): 3–24.Google Scholar
12 Donald Wilson, J. and Jones, David C., “The ‘New’ History of Canadian Education,” History of Education Quarterly 16 (Fall 1976): 367–76.Google Scholar
13 Wilson, , “Social Control,” 368.Google Scholar
14 See Jones, David C. et al., eds., Approaches to Educational History (Winnipeg, 1981), and McDonald, Neil and Chaiton, Alf, eds., Egerton Ryerson and His Times (Toronto, 1978), especially the articles by Houston, Susan, Prentice, Alison, Gaffield, Chad, Donald Wilson, J., Lawr, Douglas, and Gidney, Robert.Google Scholar
15 This literature is discussed in Harrigan, Patrick J., “Social Mobility and Schooling in History: Recent Methods and Conclusions,” Historical Reflections/Réflexions historiques 10 (Spring 1983): 127–41.Google Scholar
16 Mayeur, Francoise, “Recent Views on the History of Education in France,” European History Quarterly 14 (Jan. 1984): 93–101.Google Scholar
17 In a recent article, Laurence Veysey argues that although American educational historians have paid homage to Bailyn, they have not followed this path. “The History of Education” in The Promise of American History: Progress and Prospects, ed. Kutter, Stanley I. and Katz, Stanley N. (Baltimore, 1982).Google Scholar
18 Harrigan, , “Social Mobility.” Google Scholar
19 Berger, Carl, The Writing of Canadian History: Aspects of English-Canadian Historical Writing, 1900–1970 (Toronto, 1976); Granatstein, J. L. and Stevens, Paul, Canada since 1867: A Bibliographical Guide (Toronto, 1974).Google Scholar
20 For the United States, see Ravitch, Diane, The Revisionists Revised: A Critique of the Radical Attack on the Schools (New York, 1978).Google Scholar
21 Furet, Francois and Ozouf, Jacques, Lire et écrire: l'alphabétisation des français de Calvin à Jules Ferry, 2 vols. (Paris, 1977). The first volume has since been translated as Reading and Writing: Literacy in France from Calvin to Jules Ferry (Cambridge, 1982).Google Scholar
22 Wilson, , “Social Control”; Dahlie, Jörgen, “Writing Ethnic History: The Generations Series and the Limits of Pluralism,” Canadian Review of Studies of Nationalism 10 (Fall 1983): 299–303. I have profited greatly from the perceptions and bibliography gained from Wilson's historiographical articles.Google Scholar
23 “Demography, Social Structure, and the History of Schooling,” in Jones, et al., Approaches; see also other publications by the same author.Google Scholar
24 Grew, , Harrigan, , Whitney, , “La Scolarisation.” For Canada, see Gidney, , “Elementary Education,” and a number of articles by Jones, David C., e.g. “The Zeitgeist of Western Settlement: Education and the Myth of the Land,” in Wilson, J.D. and Jones, D.C., eds., Schooling and Society in Twentieth-Century British Columbia (Calgary, 1980), 71–89.Google Scholar
25 Foucalt, Michel, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, trans. Howard, Richard (New York, 1965); idem, Mental Illness and Psychology, trans. Sheridan, Alan (New York, 1976); Rothman, David J., The Discovery of Asylum: Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic (Boston, 1971).Google Scholar
26 Wilson, , “Social Control”; Sutherland, Neil, Children in English-Canadian Society: Framing the Twentieth-Century Consensus (Toronto, 1976); Parr, Joy, ed., Childhood and Family in Canadian History (Toronto, 1982). See also Rooke, Patricia T. and Schnell, R. L., eds., Studies in Childhood History: A Canadian Perspective (Calgary, 1982). The historiographical articles were by Harrigan, , “Social Mobility” and “Historians.”Google Scholar
27 Harrigan, , “Historians,” 13.Google Scholar
28 Exemplary are Prentice, Alison, “The Feminization of Teaching in British North America and Canada: 1845–1875,” Histoire sociale/Social History 15 (May 1975): 5–20; Danylewycz, Marta and Prentice, Alison, “Teachers, Gender, and Bureaucratizing School Systems in Nineteenth-Century Montreal and Toronto,” History of Education Quarterly 24 (Spring 1984): 75–100; Fahmi, Nadia and Dumont, Micheline, eds., Maitresses de maison, maitresses d'école: Femtnes, famille et éducation dans l'histoire du Québec (Montreal, 1983).Google Scholar
29 For a review of this literature, see Wilson, , “Social Control.” Google Scholar
30 Duveau, Georges, La pensée ouvrière sur l'éducation pendant la Seconde Republique et le Second Empire (Paris, 1948).Google Scholar
31 See especially writings by Johnson, R., e.g. “Really Useful Knowledge: Radical Education and Working-Class Culture, 1790–1848,” in Clarke, John, Critcher, C., Johnson, R., eds. Working-Class Culture: Studies in History and Theory (New York, 1980), 75–102.Google Scholar
32 Harris, Robin Sutton, A History of Higher Education in Canada, 1663–1960 (Toronto, 1976).Google Scholar
33 An excellent example of scholarship for Europe is Jarausch, Konrad H., ed., The Transformation of Higher Education, 1860–1930: Expansion, Diversification, Social Opening and Professionalization in England, Germany, Russia, and the United States (Chicago, 1983). See Harrigan, , “Historians,” and “Social Mobility” for work of the 1970s regarding Europe.Google Scholar
34 Shortt, Samuel, The Search of an Ideal: Six Canadian Intellectuals and Their Convictions in an Age of Transition, 1890–1930 (Toronto, 1976).Google Scholar
35 Desert, Gabriel, “Alphabétisation et scolarisation dans le Grand-Ouest au 19e siecle, in The Making of Frenchmen: Current Directions in the History of Education in France, 1679–1979, ed. Baker, Donald N. and Harrigan, Patrick J. (Waterloo, Ontario, 1980): 143–206.Google Scholar
36 Stamp, Robert, School Days: A Century of Memories (Calgary, 1975).Google Scholar
37 Exemplary are Lawr, Douglas A. and Gidney, Robert D., eds., Educating Canadians: A Documentary History of Public Education (Toronto, 1973); Prentice, Alison L. and Houston, Susan E., eds., Family, School, and Society in Nineteenth-Century Canada (Toronto, 1975).Google Scholar
38 Harrigan, Patrick, Mobility, Elites, and Education in French Society of the Second Empire (Waterloo, Ont., 1980), 116.Google Scholar
39 Harrigan, , “Historians,” 19; Donald Wilson, J., “Historiographical Perspectives on Canadian Educational History: A Review Essay,” Journal of Educational Thought 11 (1977): 62. For exemplary studies of the content of textbooks, see Lundgreen, Peter, “Analyse preussischer Schulbücher als Zugang zum Thema Schulbildung und Industrialisierung,” International Review of Social History 15 (1970): 85–121; and Clark, Linda, Schooling the Daughters of Marianne: Textbooks and the Socialization of Girls in Modern Primary Schools (Albany, N.Y., 1984).Google Scholar
40 Harrigan, , “Historians,” 11–13; Wilson, , “Historiographical,” 58–59.Google Scholar
41 Wilson, , “Observations,” 20–21.Google Scholar
42 Two examples from France suffice. Changes in historical approaches, by Bloch, Marc, Fevre, Lucien, and Braudel, Fernand led to an interest in historical demography. Demographic findings led to a re-evaluation of the history of the family—two new fields created by historical insight. An historical interest, again by scholars to Annates, of who might have read what books prior to the French Revolution, fostered the histoire des mentalités, which evolved into a wider interest into the history of popular culture.Google Scholar
43 See, for example, Gidney, Robert D. and Lawr, Douglas A., “Bureaucracy vs. Community?: The Origins of Bureaucratic Procedure in the Upper Canadian School System,” Journal of Social History 13 (Spring 1980): 438–57.Google Scholar
- 6
- Cited by