To Be North American but Not American: The Transformation of Canadian Studies and Canadian Universities

Abstract

The Canadianization movement emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s from Canadian universities and has been treated as a brief moment in the historiography of Canada’s 1960s, post-secondary education in Canada and broader Americanization of Canadian society. The historical figureheads of the movement, Robin Mathews and James Steele, advocated for the hiring of Canadian faculty and increased Canadian content in universities across Canada. When a broader lens is used to view the Canadianization movement, it becomes apparent that the movement was the beginning of efforts to develop Canadian Studies as an interdisciplinary project in Canadian universities. Canadianizing efforts examined course content, curricula and personnel (including faculty, graduate students, and administrators) in order to foster a unique Canadian identity through the promotion of Canadian education. These studies were the origins of a number of Canadian university hiring policies and practices in place today. The Canadianization movement needs to be considered a broader movement–both chronologically and outside the involvement of Mathews and Steele–because, when it is expanded to encompass other organizations and reports that supported explicit Canadianization goals, such as the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), the Committee for an Independent Canada, the Symons’s Report, and David Cameron’s Taking Stock, the movement’s importance to Canadian education and Canadian identity becomes readily apparent.