Liberal philosophers of education often concentrate on issues of accommodation and recognition coming from minority cultures within pluralistic societies. While this remains an important task, I argue that there are troubling currents within the mainstream culture that merit philosophical critique by liberals. In this thesis I situate the educational platform of liberal philosopher Eamonn Callan within critiques coming from social theorists concerned with the growing influence of the market in our culture. I argue that unless these critiques are taken seriously (...) liberals will have trouble translating their educational ideals into feasible modes of practice. I conclude by suggesting three ways in which this dialogue between liberals and social theorists can address these troubling currents. (shrink)

Québec’s model of cultural diversity, Interculturalism, has been the object of considerable debate since Bouchard and Taylor released in 2008 their now famous report, Building the Future: A Time for Reconciliation. Among other things, the authors recommended that schools take more seriously Québec’s Intercultural model as a means of bringing diverse cultures into a single society. In this dissertation I consider the uptake and implication of Intercultural ideals in Québec’s History and Citizenship education course. This study involved three secondary school (...) history teachers in Montreal Anglophone schools. Using Thacher’s “normative case study” as the methodological framework, I combine curriculum documents, classroom observations, open-ended interviews, and photo-voice methods to illuminate the Intercultural model’s shortcomings with regard to issues of power and identity. The guiding question for this dissertation is: how do the historicized power dynamics embedded within Québec’s Intercultural policy shape history education in Québec? Two sets of tensions are found to be at the crux of the issue of history teaching in Québec: first the theoretical debates on history education do not take Québec’s specific brand of cultural negotiation into account, resulting in a lack of research on the civic implications of history education particular to the Québec context. Second, the Intercultural model itself does not adequately deal with entrenched issues of power relating to marginalized identities, which raises many questions for how civic education is being carried out in the province. (shrink)