Throughout its history as a nation, Canada has had a
culturally diverse population. For much of this time education
has been one of the principal means through which the state and
society have addressed the concerns associated with cultural
diversity. From the early 1900s onward local and provincial
educational authorities have developed and implemented a variety
of policies and programs designed to address these concerns. In
the 1940s, as the federal government started to develop its first
policy and programs to address cultural diversity, it also found
itself involved in the field of cultural diversity and education.
This study examines how the federal government became interested
in cultural diversity and education and how it continued to work
in this field despite the fact that education is an area of
provincial jurisdiction.
In 1940 federal authorities began to lay the groundwork for
a cultural diversity policy designed to foster support for the
Canadian war effort among members of non-British, non-French
ethnic groups. Education was initially to have been one of the
strategies through which federal authorities implemented their
cultural diversity policy but cultural diversity and education
became an area of federal policy separate from yet related to the
cultural diversity policy. Throughout most of its history, the
two main objectives of the cultural diversity and education
policy were education of immigrants for assimilation and
education to promote effective intergroup relations. By the late 1960s tentative steps were being taken in the direction of
education for cultural retention.
Over the period from 1940 to 1971 a policy community of
individuals and agencies with interests in cultural diversity and
education evolved. Members of this community influenced the
development of the federal policy by working on specific
initiatives with the federal agency responsible for cultural
diversity and education. Each of those initiatives became a site
for negotiation on the direction of the policy. Thus the policy
developed in an unplanned and ad hoc manner and grew to
incorporate contradictory objectives. In addition, some of the
work in cultural diversity and education also undermined the
goals of the federal cultural diversity policy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/8797 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Joshee, Reva |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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