| Summary: | The constitutional division of powers in Canada assigns no
authority to the federal state in the area of education. In
spite of this, the Canadian state has used its constitutional
authority to act in the national interest to justify substantial
activity in public education at all levels. One area of
particular interest to the state is the education of Canadian
citizens. This thesis examines state policy in citizenship
education between 1947 and 1982. It focuses on the Department
of the Secretary of State, particularly the Canadian Citizenship
Branch, and addresses three questions: 1) What conception of
citizenship formed the basis for state policy in citizenship
education? 2) How did the state formulate citizenship education
policy? and 3) What means did the federal state use to implement
citizenship education policy given that education is an area of
provincial jurisdiction?
Throughout this period the state was preoccupied with
questions of national unity and therefore the focus of its
policy in citizenship education was the construction and
propagation of a national ideal in which all Canadians could
find their identity as citizens. The policy was consistent with
an elitist conception of citizenship in that it excluded most
Canadians from the process of constructing the national identity
and relegated citizen participation to largely apolitical
voluntary activities.
Although the Department of the Secretary of State was rhetorically committed to scientific policy making, the process
was driven not by social science research but by attempts to
secure and extend bureaucratic territory in relation to both
other government departments and voluntary organizations working
in the citizenship sector. In the complex interplay among the
interested parties the Department was sometimes a leader and
sometimes a follower in the policy making process.
State citizenship education policy was implemented through
official agreements with the provinces as well as more direct
means which bypassed provincial authorities. Bilingualism in
Education programs are the best example of the former, while
training programs for teachers, the production and dissemination
of materials, and attempts to use voluntary organizations as
surrogates for the state are examples of the latter.
|
|---|
