Curriculum reform in a culture of redress: how social and political pressures are shaping social studies curriculum in Canada

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recently, the Canadian government has initiated a wide range of actions and gestures aimed at reconciling historical injustices including the state’s relationship with Indigenous peoples and nations. Reforming K-12 education to adequately teach Canada’s difficult past has been a key priority in this movement, leading to curriculum change across the country. This article explores the development of a new curriculum in British Columbia that explicitly aims to address historical injustice and reconciliation. Drawing from an analysis of curriculum documents and interviews with six curriculum writers, this paper illustrates how political motivations and social pressures to redress ‘historical wrongs’ are adapted and translated into curricular content expectations. This article argues that the new social studies curriculum places greater attention on historical injustice and in doing so shifts the larger goals informing social studies education in Canada. At the same time these shifts adopt state discourses of reconciliation and multiculturalism which limit their ability to adequately engage the difficult past. This paper raises questions and makes suggestions about the possible roles and limitations for social studies and history education in pursuit of reconciliation and redress in post-conflict and settler colonial contexts.