Relationships between the terms culture and education are often taken for granted in educational research. This study challenges some of the taken for granted assumptions around the term culture in educational contexts, particularly in secondary language arts education. It examines these assumptions through an analysis of three debates from the contemporary culture wars in education. The implications of these debates on uses of the term culture in secondary language arts education are examined through Othello as a secondary school text. I am arguing that these debates, namely, on the literary canon, multicultural education, and cultural literacy, represent intractable conflicts over definitions of the term culture. In light of these conflicts, the aim of this study is to provide language arts educators with analytical tools for developing greater theoretical rigour when defining the term culture in language arts education. Drawing on recent theoretical writings on culture, concepts of cultural capital, cultural rights, and cultural reproduction are proposed as analytical tools. I then apply these to develop a methodological approach by which to structure my analysis of Othello as a school text. The study makes a theoretical contribution by bringing into sharper focus ways in which the ideological opposition between expressions of cultural right versus cultural left perspectives is articulated in language arts education, as well as illustrating that claims about culture in the canon debate reflect competing normative assumptions; in the multicultural education debate they reflect competing essentialist constructions; and in the cultural literacy debate they reflect competing empowerment goals. Such cultural debates have a long history and thus the study also situates the contemporary culture wars in education within a wider historical context by tracing related conflicts in the history of literary criticism on and performances of Othello over the past four centuries.

This thesis expands upon the concept of the global culture wars in sub-Saharan Africa from a Canadian perspective, focusing on the growing division within Canada between conservative, religious values and liberal, progressive ones (Caplan, 2012). This division led to a political and cultural realignment alongside the increased visibility and leadership of religious and faith communities in Canadian public and political life. Amidst this polarization, Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper was elected Prime Minister in February 2006. Under his leadership, a conservative, pro-family agenda was established. This agenda, which advocates a traditional understanding of family life and structure, in particular refers to a legally married, heterosexual couple with children. It was supported by the evangelical Christian population in Canada, which grew from a united religious community in Canada into a significant constituency of the Conservative Party. Harper’s tenure, coupled with the increased visibility and leadership of faith and religious communities significantly affected domestic and international policies during his tenure as Prime Minister, from 2006 to 2015. This thesis examines the Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, Child, and Newborn Health (Muskoka-MNCH) and shows how this initiative, which fostered anti-abortion rhetoric abroad, was utilized to appease the evangelical community’s anti-abortion position in Canada.

No description available.

One of the most defining moments in the histories of British satire and the public sphere took place in the late 1790s in an abandoned house in Piccadilly. Here George Canning and several fellow conservatives began writing and circulating their weekly newspaper the Anti-Jacobin. Although the periodical has been critically neglected, it is a valuable model for exploring how literary (partisan) politicians attempted to form a rational and critical public sphere through their satiric poetry. Founded by George Canning and edited by William Gifford, the Anti-Jacobin seems to reflect a reactionary conservative's ideology and has been summarily dismissed because of this one-sided nature. In this essay, I suggest a more nuanced reading of both Canning's biography and his Anti-Jacobin poetry that will give a fuller and more accurate version of Canning, one that illustrates a moderate reformer who is concerned with centralizing the extremism of the 1790s.

No description available.

L'objectif de cette thèse de doctorat est de montrer comment la victoire de la liberté dans le domaine matrimonial a permis à la communauté LGBT de se mettre en ordre de bataille, Etat après Etat, pour mettre fin à une citoyenneté de seconde zone, sensibiliser et éduquer les américains sur les réalités de la vie homosexuelle, marquée par une longue histoire de discrimination et de préjugés hostiles aux homosexuels, souvent véhiculés par des chrétiens fondamentalistes. Nous reviendrons sur les origines historiques de cette guerre culturelle contre l'homosexualité pour montrer comment celle-ci structure encore aujourd'hui le système de gouvernement et alimente la polarisation politique, en partant du postulat que la brèche dans le mur de séparation entre l'Eglise et l'Etat est en partie responsable de nombreux blocages institutionnels et d'un patchwork de lois inégalitaires à travers le pays. Le combat pour l'égalité des droits de la communauté LGBT se révèle être, en définitive, un formidable observatoire de la démocratie américaine qui continue d'affecter l'efficacité du système démocratique des contre-pouvoirs par différents processus dynamiques liés au changement et à l'affirmation de la liberté religieuse / The ojective of this PhD dissertation is to show how the victory for the freedom to marry enabled the LGBT community to gear up for a national State-by-State campaign to put an end to second-class citizenship, raise awareness, and educate the American people to a reality that is marked by a long history of discrimination and hostile prejudice against homosexuals, with such hostility often being expressed and disseminated by fundamentalist Christians. We will revisit the historical origins of the culture war against homosexuality to show it still structures the system of government tody, and fuels political polarization, starting from the premise that the breach in the separating wall between Church and State is partly responsible for the numerous institutionnal deadblocks as well as a patchwork system of unegquel laws across the country. the LGBT community's fight for equal rights ultimately turns out to provide a particularly powerful insight into American democracy, and continues to affect the democratic system of checks and balances through various dynamic processes which are bound up with change and with the assertion of religious freedom