Manitoba Schooling in the Canadian Context and the Building of a Polity: 1919-1971

Abstract

This paper addresses the movement from Anglo-conformity as the principle articulating the notion of citizenship education to multiculturalism. It is an historical analysis that focuses on Manitoba education in relation to English speaking Canada. It calls attention to and attempts to explain the gap between educational aims and policies and actual classroom life. Given the intersubjective and relational character of identity formation, citizenship education often contributed to the development of forms of proto-multiculturalism that later gained political space. Furthermore, minorities often became Canadians in their own terms. The boundaries between private and public tended to become diffused in the school experience. The paper also refers to internal and external socio-economic, political, ideological, and educational developments that led to a redefinition of the public good by making multiculturalism an articulating principle in the pursuit of a common polity.