Soutenance mémoire
Laying the Groundwork for the Three Articles
National History Teaching in Quebec
In Western, democratic nation-states, history teaching holds two important social functions, the applications of which exert pressure on both educators and program developers to adequately balance the measure of each so as to dynamically preserve the social system in perpetuity. The first function involves the transmission of a national or, as is increasingly the case today, a civic identity reference framework, the main aim of which resides in aiding students locate their moral and socio-political agency within the ongoing story of the nation. This involves promoting a historical narrative that encapsulates the state’s vision of its past, present and future.
Incorporating important historical dates, events, figures, and myths, such a narrative usually reflects the values and other cultural norms of the dominant ethno-cultural group that controls the state’s resources and institutions. While this process potentially excludes the social and historical experiences of ethnic or other minorities, the democratic system nonetheless encourages their respective interest groups to lobby the government to include their own perspectives in the national historical narrative transmitted in schools (Fullinwider 1996; Nash et al. 1997; Stearns et al. 2000; Barton and Levstik 2004; Seixas 2004a; Vickers 2005).
Through the transferral of notions of disciplinary history, the second function of history teaching consists of endowing students with the capacity to think critically and autonomously. Among other objectives, this involves openly questioning, debating, constructing and appreciating different interpretations of the past. In terms of future civic participation, the development and honing of such skills prepares students to make independent decisions about policy or moral issues instead of automatically accepting what is presented from above at face value. While ultimately invigorating for democracy, excess in critical and autonomous thinking could, however, produce an adverse effect. Relativity of all opinions could endorse a determinist, blind surrender to disguised authoritarian control, thereby threatening democratic stability and perpetuity (Nash et al. 1997; Stearns et al. 2000; Barton and Levstik 2004; Seixas 2004a; Vickers 2005).
Historical Consciousness and Quebec History Teacher Predispositions to Improving Common Future Life
Intrinsic to harmonizing history teaching’s two central functions in Quebec’s parallel classrooms is how educators historicize the common past between Francophones and Anglophones. According to how they view and mobilize history in order to make sense of inter-group relations, teachers may thus see the past as calling them, at one extreme, to blindly and rigidly reproduce pre-established visions of their group, or at the other, to creatively and openly use it as a means of transforming and adjusting themselves to the changing realities of the world around them. Underlying these different predispositions of historical consciousness is the emergence of significant life patterns that offer educators a sense of responsibility and conscience for orienting themselves in time. This implies the inevitable mobilization of moral values when teachers draw upon past power relations to construct inter-group realities. In the national history classroom, this would suggest that the socializing of students for common future life varies according to educators’ ethical, political and even practical motivations for improving the quality of inter-group existence.
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Chapter One. Introduction
References
Chapter Two. Laying the Groundwork for the Three Articles
1. National History Teaching in Quebec
2. Historical Consciousness and Quebec History Teacher Predispositions to Improving Common Future Life
3. The Dissertations’ Epistemological Framework
4. General Research on Historical Consciousness and History Teaching in Education
5. General Research on History Teachers
6. General Research on Educators Teaching the “History of Quebec and Canada” Course
7. General Research on History Teachers in Northern Ireland
8. The Methodological Approach Used for Discerning Teacher Expressions of Historical Consciousness
References
Chapter Three. Historical Consciousness and Ethnicity: How Signifying the Past Influences the Fluctuations in Ethnic Boundaries
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Understanding “History” by Bridging Disciplinary History with Collective Memory
3. Conceptualising Historical Consciousness: Towards a Repertory of Tendencies
4. Understandings of Ethnicity that Deal with Historical Consciousness
5. Conclusion: Toward Theorising the Relationship between Historical Consciousness and the Fluctuations in Ethnic Boundaries
References
Chapter Four. Historical Consciousness and the “French-English” Divide among Quebec History Teachers
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Opaque Boundaries: Quebec Francophones and Anglophones
3. History Teaching in Quebec
4. Defining Historical Consciousness
5. The Study
5.1 Respondents who teach in French in French Schools
5.2 Respondents who teach in English in English Schools
5.3 Respondents who teach in French in English Schools
6. Analysis
7. Concluding Remarks: Quebec History Teachers’ Historical Consciousness
References
Chapter Five. Vers une compréhension de la conscience historique des francophones à l’égard des Anglo-québécois : une étude qualitative auprès des enseignants d’histoire nationale
Résumé
1. Introduction
2. La conscience historique, la capacité d’historiciser et l’ethnicité
3. Un répertoire des quatre tendances de la conscience historique
4. Étude qualitative de la conscience historique
4.1 Méthodologie de la recherche
4.1.1 Recueil des données
4.1.2 Méthode d’analyse des données
4.2 Présentation des résultats
4.2.1 Description générale des répondants et de leurs tendances de conscience historique
4.2.2 L’analyse horizontale
4.2.2.1 L’utilité de l’histoire pour historiciser le passé
4.2.2.2 La place de l’Anglophone dans un nouveau programme d’histoire québécois
4.2.2.3 La conscience historique de l’Anglophone dans le passé québécois
4.2.2.4 La conscience historique des relations Francophones-Anglophones à travers le temps
4.2.2.5 La conscience historique du récit traditionnel sur l’identité collective francophone
5. Discussion générale
6. Conclusion
Références
Chapter Six. General Discussion and Concluding Remarks
1. Thesis Contributions to theorizing Historical Consciousness and Ethnicity
2. Contributions to Quebec History Teaching and Francophone-Anglophone Relations
3. Recommendations for Improving Francophone-Anglophone Relations in Quebec History Teaching
4. Prospective Research on Historical Consciousness and the Construction of Inter-Group Relations
References
References
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