3 A Historical Overview of Education in Canada
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you will be able to:
- Identify major education-related historical events in Quebec and Ontario.
- Explain how tensions between the French/Catholics and English/Protestants influenced the development of education in Quebec and Ontario.
- Explain how the British North America Act and Section 93 are important parts of education-related legislation.
- Identify major events in post-Confederation education in Quebec and Ontario.
- Explain the structure of school governance in Canada.
- Identify major events in the development of education in the rest of Canada.
- Define the four educational regime types.
- Summarize the history of residential schooling in Canada.
- Identify three different types of school segregation practices in Canada’s history.
- Explain three major socio-historical functions of mass schooling.
- Explain what is meant by the feminization of the teaching corps.
Introduction
The history of education in Canada is a long and complex one that varies according to region. In any social history, there are various interpretations of the facts, and the social history of education in Canada is no exception. This chapter begins by examining the formation of education systems in what is now Quebec and Ontario, as this is where settlement patterns were heavily concentrated until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The education systems of Quebec and Ontario are shaped by complex historical and cultural specificities that cannot be examined in any detail here. In brief, between 1791 and 1841, these two regions were called Lower Canada and Upper Canada, corresponding to the southern parts of the provinces we know today. In the 1840 Act of Union, the Canadas were united into the United Province of Canada, with two parts, Canada East (Quebec) and Canada West (Ontario). The provinces took on the names we know now with Confederation in 1867.
Many important political events shaped the systems of education in the two areas. French Canada (New France) had been settled for hundred of years before the British colonialists arrived. Wars between the English and the French eventually led to French defeat and an ongoing political battle by the French not to become assimilated into British culture, which extended—in no small part—into the systems of education that became dominant in each region.
New France and Lower Canada 1600s–1830s
With over 400 years of history, summarizing the development of education in French Canada in this textbook can only partially cover the many events that led to the system of education that now exists in Quebec. More complete discussions are available by noted educational historians of Quebec, such as Louis-Phillip Audet (1971).
Stark differences between French and English Canada meant that education developed rather differently in Quebec compared to the rest of the country. Settling Canada by the 1600s, a system of “petite