Organized by region, this edited collection provides a comprehensive look at how teacher education has evolved regionally and nationally in Canada. Offering an in-depth look at specific provinces and territories, this volume contextualizes the landscape of Canadian public education and the place of teacher education within it. Shedding light on the ways Canadian teacher education was shaped by and in turn influenced its environment, contributors evaluate the current state of education and consider themes, tensions, and historical developments, presenting a view of teacher education that encompasses both its future and its past. A significant contribution to the field of curriculum history, this book offers a benchmark for conversations about the purposes, means, and ends of teacher education in Canada.

This book offers a meso-level description of demographics, science education, and science teacher education. Representing all 13 Canadian jurisdictions, the book provides local insights that serve as the basis for exploring the Canadian system as a whole and function as a common starting point from which to identify causal relationships that may be associated with Canada’s successes. The book highlights commonalities, consistencies, and distinctions across the provinces and territories in a thematic analysis of the 13 jurisdiction-specific chapters. Although the analysis indicates a network of policy and practice issues warranting further consideration, the diverse nature of Canadian science education makes simple identification of causal relationships elusive. Canada has a reputation for strong science achievement. However, there is currently limited literature on science education in Canada at the general level or in specific areas such as Canadian science curriculum or science teacher education. This book fills that gap by presenting a thorough description of science education at the provincial/territorial level, as well as a more holistic description of pressing issues for Canadian science education.

This book situates teacher training, preparation and education in Canada within national and global histories. The authors lead the reader through an exploration of the objectives of schooling, the contextual role of teachers, and the political undercurrents sustaining various educational conceptions and policies.

This book explores diverse relationships at play in integrating Indigenous knowledges and Western Science in curricula. The readers will unravel ways in which history, policy, and relationships with local Indigenous communities play a role in developing and implementing ‘cross-cultural’ science curricula in schools. Incorporating stories from multiple individuals involved in curriculum development and implementation – university professors, a ministry consultant, a First Nations and Métis Education coordinator, and most importantly, classroom teachers – this book offers suggestions for education stakeholders at different levels. Focusing on the importance of understanding ‘relationships at play’, this book also shows the author’s journey in re/search, wherein she grapples with both Indigenous and Western research frameworks. Featuring a candid account of this journey from research preparation to writing, this book also offers insights on the relationships at play in doing re/search that respects Indigenous ways of coming to know.

As intellectual engines of the university, professors hold considerable authority and play an important role in society. By nature of their occupation, they are agents of intellectual culture in Canada. Historical Identities is a new collection of essays examining the history of the professoriate in Canada. Framing the volume with the question, 'What was it like to be a professor?' editors Paul Stortz and E. Lisa Panayotidis, along with an esteemed group of Canadian historians, strive to uncover and analyze variables and contexts - such as background, education, economics, politics, gender, and ethnicity - in the lives of academics throughout Canada's history. The contributors take an in-depth approach to topics such as academic freedom, professors and the state, faculty development, discipline construction and academic cultures, religion, biography, gender and faculty wives, images of professors, and background and childhood experiences. Including the best and most recent critical research in the field of the social history of higher education and professors, Historical Identities examines fundamental and challenging topics, issues, and arguments on the role and nature of intellectualism in Canada.

Between 1867 and 2000, the Canadian government sent over 150,000 Aboriginal children to residential schools across the country. Government officials and missionaries agreed that in order to “civilize and Christianize” Aboriginal children, it was necessary to separate them from their parents and their home communities. For children, life in these schools was lonely and alien. Discipline was harsh, and daily life was highly regimented. Aboriginal languages and cultures were denigrated and suppressed. Education and technical training too often gave way to the drudgery of doing the chores necessary to make the schools self-sustaining. Child neglect was institutionalized, and the lack of supervision created situations where students were prey to sexual and physical abusers. Legal action by the schools’ former students led to the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2008. The product of over six years of research, the Commission’s final report outlines the history and legacy of the schools, and charts a pathway towards reconciliation. Canada’s Residential Schools: The History, Part 1, Origins to 1939 places Canada’s residential school system in the historical context of European campaigns to colonize and convert Indigenous people throughout the world. In post-Confederation Canada, the government adopted what amounted to a policy of cultural genocide: suppressing spiritual practices, disrupting traditional economies, and imposing new forms of government. Residential schooling quickly became a central element in this policy. The destructive intent of the schools was compounded by chronic underfunding and ongoing conflict between the federal government and the church missionary societies that had been given responsibility for their day-to-day operation. A failure of leadership and resources meant that the schools failed to control the tuberculosis crisis that gripped the schools for much of this period. Alarmed by high death rates, Aboriginal parents often refused to send their children to the schools, leading the government adopt ever more coercive attendance regulations. While parents became subject to ever more punitive regulations, the government did little to regulate discipline, diet, fire safety, or sanitation at the schools. By the period’s end the government was presiding over a nation-wide series of firetraps that had no clear educational goals and were economically dependent on the unpaid labour of underfed and often sickly children.

Between 1867 and 2000, the Canadian government sent over 150,000 Aboriginal children to residential schools across the country. Government officials and missionaries agreed that in order to “civilize and Christianize” Aboriginal children, it was necessary to separate them from their parents and their home communities. For children, life in these schools was lonely and alien. Discipline was harsh, and daily life was highly regimented. Aboriginal languages and cultures were denigrated and suppressed. Education and technical training too often gave way to the drudgery of doing the chores necessary to make the schools self-sustaining. Child neglect was institutionalized, and the lack of supervision created situations where students were prey to sexual and physical abusers. Legal action by the schools’ former students led to the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2008. The product of over six years of research, the Commission’s final report outlines the history and legacy of the schools, and charts a pathway towards reconciliation. Canada’s Residential Schools: The History, Part 2, 1939 to 2000 carries the story of the residential school system from the end of the Great Depression to the closing of the last remaining schools in the late 1990s. It demonstrates that the underfunding and unsafe living conditions that characterized the early history of the schools continued into an era of unprecedented growth and prosperity for most Canadians. A miserly funding formula meant that into the late 1950s school meals fell short of the Canada Food Rules. Overcrowding, poor sanitation, and a failure to adhere to fire safety rules were common problems throughout this period. While government officials had come to view the schools as costly and inefficient, the churches were reluctant to countenance their closure. It was not until the late 1960s that the federal government finally wrested control of the system away from the churches. Government plans to turn First Nations education over to the provinces met with opposition from Aboriginal organizations that were seeking “Indian Control of Indian Education.” Following parent-led occupation of a school in Alberta, many of the remaining schools came under Aboriginal administration. The closing of the schools coincided with a growing number of convictions of former staff members on charges of sexually abusing students. These trials revealed the degree to which sexual abuse at the schools had been covered up in the past. Former students, who came to refer to themselves as Survivors, established regional and national organizations and provided much of the leadership for the campaign that led to the federal government issuing in 2008 an apology to the former students and their families.