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Federal policies on cultural diversity and education, 1940 - 1971

University of British Columbia

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.

Canada

Text

eng

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0055459

Doctor of Philosophy - PhD

Education, Faculty of; Educational Studies (EDST), Department of

1995-05

Graduate