Canadian school policy in liberal and post‐liberal eras: historical perspectives on the changing social context of schooling, 1846‐1990

Abstract

Abstract Educational policy in Canada is in the midst of an important transition as the 1990s begin. The origins of this transformation, this paper argues, may be traced to the early 1970s when government leaders began to question openly the costs of schooling and the effectiveness of school programmes. However, rising public and governmental concerns with the institution of public schooling, the paper contends, are even more deeply intertwined with the larger affairs of state and with a shift away from the philosophical and social foundations that have governed public policy‐making in Canada for more than a century. These philosophical and social foundations, this paper will attempt to illustrate, were born in the common school movement of the mid‐nineteenth century and the ideas of Victorian liberalism that produced it. After more than a century of directing educational thought and practice, these liberal ideas have lost much of their public and political appeal. This paper will examine the reasons for ...