The Girl Guides of Canada is a youth service organization, serving almost 10% of the Canadian female population aged 5-17, that aims to teach girls and young women to become responsible citizens. In this thesis, I review the curriculum of the Pathfinder branch (for girls and young women aged 12-15) of the Girl Guides of Canada. Using feminist, anti-racist, and queer perspectives, I treat "responsible citizenship" as a discursive concept and conduct a discourse analysis of the Pathfinder programme to discover how it attempts to gain the consent of girls and young women to particular definitions of responsible citizenship. Drawing on feminist citizenship theory developed by Yuval-Davis, Anthias, Alexander, and Ross, I argue that the state implicates select female citizens in nation building practices as biological reproducers and transmitters of culture. I also draw on theories of moral regulation extended by Sangster, Strange, and Loo to illustrate ways in which the state and voluntary organizations attempt to gain the consent of citizens to particular ways of being. I argue that, because its texts authorize particular definitions of responsible citizenship, the Pathfinder curriculum implicates girls and young women in capitalist nation building in Canada. Specifically, I argue that the Pathfinder programme normalizes heterosexuality, whiteness, and ability, and privileges middle-class values. I also demonstrate that a responsible citizen, according to the Pathfinder curriculum, performs caregiving and environmental stewardship as volunteer service, prepares to join the labour force, and is healthy, hygienic, cheerful and obedient. I raise questions about the nature of the organization's efforts to teach about sexism, racism, classism, ableism, homophobia and heterosexism, and suggest some ways in which the curriculum can attend to these social relations to develop a more inclusive image of the ideal responsible citizen. I also suggest a number of directions for future research. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

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The purpose of this study is to describe the geographic distribution of Aboriginal people who live in remote, isolated Aboriginal communities in Canada in terms of how geographic settings and features, particularly those that are characteristic of island dwellers, are related to and can impact aspects of culture and identity. Through this process, data was collected using a research synthesis, which allowed for a great deal of data from various sources to be analyzed, extracted, and coded. Based on this qualitative study, numerous geographic characteristics similar to those of islanders and islands emerged. Physically, islands and Aboriginal communities represent bounded, finite spaces that are located on the periphery and are impacted by isolation. These unique isolated areas allow for islanders and Aboriginal people to experience ethnic homogeneity and strong attachments to place, both of which allow for the preservation of culture and identity. That being said, islanders and Aboriginal people both experience migration as a way of life, and leaving their places of origin to experience life in larger, more diversely and densely populated areas is necessary for many. As a result of these findings, this study compares isolated Aboriginal communities in Canada and Aboriginal people to various small islands around the world as well as islanders, through various spatial metaphors.

This cross-cultural inquiry focuses on the involvement of mothers in their children's education and the ways in which motherhood impacts the personal identities of mothers. The Second-wave feminism started thirty years ago and questioned the role and position of mothers in society. The objective of this movement was to free women from the exclusive responsibility of childcare. However, three decades later women are still the primary caregivers for their children. The study involves 36 middle-class mothers, 12 each from Canada, India and Mexico. Irrespective of their cultural backgrounds, these mothers participated actively in the domestic work related to childcare and in their children's schoolwork. Participants in this study expressed their views about intensive mothering and how they sought their personal identities from the work of mothering. The majority regarded motherhood as a unique and rewarding role, and wished to continue mothering despite the frustrations and stresses they experienced. The findings concerning the childcare strategies of mothers from Canada, India and Mexico highlight some cultural differences. These cultural differences also had an impact on how these mothers perceived their roles and identities.

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This thesis examines the changing role of Indian women, particularly in northern Canadian communities where the pace of directed change has been compressed during the past twenty-five years. In the area now designated 'Yukon Territory' live descendents of Athapaskan, Inland Tlingit and Tagish speaking peoples. It is suggested here that the woman's role is potentially very important in determining the direction of change within Indian communities. Despite radical alterations in the Indian way of life, discontinuity is less abrupt for the women because the role of mother links them both with the past and with the future. In a situation of change, links are necessary to bridge the gap between the past and the future if cultural identity is to be maintained. Cross-cultural data suggests that women's potential in this role is being recognized in many areas of the world. In Canada, this is frequently ignored. Indian men and women are often lumped as an undifferentiated group without recognition of individual needs and capabilities. Since the building of the Alaska highway and the opening up of mines, an industrial economy has displaced the former hunting and trapping economy in the Yukon. Many Indian men are abandoning traditional economic pursuits and are expected to compete with non-Indians in activities for which they are often not technically or psychologically prepared. In the new cultural environment Indian women are presented with opportunities for independent activity which were traditionally not available to them. With new opportunities come new and often conflicting expectations, held both by Indians and by non-Indians, about ways in which an Indian woman should behave. A variety of government agencies claim a vested interest in, and a responsibility for, an Indian family. Each agency places independent demands on the mother, often with very little comprehension of her aims, goals and values. Indian women have access to sources of information which are less available to Indian men. They use this information to reformulate their own ideas about their place in the changing environment. Practical possibilities for greater involvement of women in change do exist; however, this involvement trust occur on the women's own terms rather than solely on the terms of individuals who deal with women in an administrative capacity. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate