1,721,124 research outputs found
Gaffield, Chad, Children\u27s Lives and A adcemic Achievement in Canada and the United States, Comparative Education Review, 38(February, 1994), 36-64.
No full textAnalyzes social and cultural factors affecting achievement on the IAEP, 1991
The Canadian Distinctiveness into the XXIst Century - La distinction canadienne au tournant du XXIe siecle
No full textIn this collection of essays some of Canada's foremost writers and thinkers, including John Ralston Saul and Margaret Atwood, call for equilibrium among economics, culture, and technological change. While promoting the dynamism and change possible in Canadian society, they also call for a re-examination of Canada's past in order to chart its future
The underside of glory: AfriCanadian enlistment in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1917.
No full textOn March 28, 1917, the officers and men of the Number Two Construction Battalion (No. 2 CB) sailed from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to serve with the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF). The departure of the No. 2 CB marked a turning point in a three year battle over AfriCanadian volunteers in the CEF. Although there were no official policies preventing AfriCanadian enlistments, many AfriCanadian volunteers learned early in the War that racist military and civilian officials did not want a "Checker board army" and that it was a "White man's war." Nevertheless, AfriCanadians and their supporters persistently sought enlistments. In the process they exposed the racist underside of Canada's war-time glory. Eventually, the No. 2 CB, a segregated non-combat unit was authorized. Although the No. 2 CB was not the military objective AfriCanadians had fought for, it was one of the few options available for AfriCanadians who wanted to 'do their bit' for Canada during the 'Great War.' As part of a small, yet, slowly developing body of work related to the AfriCanadian wartime experience, this thesis examens the key personalities and events that fostered the creation and recruitment of Canada's only AfriCanadian overseas military unit. (Abstract shortened by UMI.
Preserving Records, Creating Memories, Shaping Research: Inside the Canadian Women’s Movement Archives
No full textWork, wages and welfare in aboriginal-non-aboriginal relations, British Columbia, 1849-1970.
No full textThis dissertation focuses on the work-for-pay exchange between aboriginal people and immigrants of European stock--the two most prominent cultural groups in the early history of British Columbia--and follows the patterns of this exchange from its origins through to the 1970s. It examines both the material and the rhetorical construction of the "Indian" as a part of British Columbia's labour force, a process described as racialization, and emphasizes, as well, the transformation of meaning inherent in cross-cultural exchange. It is a province-wide analysis, the core of which is a micro-history of one aboriginal group, the Songhees people, who live in the area now occupied by Victoria, the capital city. This examination challenges the long-standing view that aboriginal people were bystanders in the economic development and industrialization of British Columbia outside, and after, the fur trade. From the establishment of the Colony of Vancouver Island in 1849, through Confederation with Canada in 1871 and to the 1885 completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, aboriginal people comprised the majority of the population in present-day British Columbia, and the majority of the work force in agriculture, fishing, trapping and the burgeoning primary industries. This dissertation charts the subsequent decline in participation of aboriginal people in the capitalist economy from 1885 to 1970. Using a micro-historical study and close attention to aboriginal voices it offers a set of explanations for the changing proportions of work, both paid and unpaid, and state welfare payments. The micro-history reveals that the Songhees people engaged in two distinct but connected economies and were already familiar with forms of labour subordination prior to the European introduction of a capitalist economy. The Songhees participation in paid labour for Europeans was facilitated by these existing forms of labour organization and depended on the co-existence of their other economies; the Songhees used earnings from capitalist paid labour to expand their non-capitalist economies. After 1885, new state policies repressed the non-capitalist aboriginal economics and therefore diminished the underlying motivation for aboriginal participation in capitalist work. At the same time, an influx of labour-market competition and a variety of racialized laws and practices restricted the Songhees' ability to get work. Increasingly they were left with seasonal, low-skill and low-wage labour, a niche that maintained them so long as it was combined with a subsistence economy and involved the full participation of adult and adolescent family members. In the late 1940s and 1950s this pattern too was remade. Legal restrictions dramatically limited the subsistence economies; technological change curtailed the demand for seasonal labour in the canning, fishing and agricultural sectors, particularly affecting aboriginal women workers; and, compulsory schooling regulations began to reduce labour available to the family economy. At the same historic moment when the combined wage and subsistence economies ceased to be able to support them, the state extended some existing social welfare programs, such as Old Age Pension, to Indians, and expanded other programs, including Family Allowance, to all Canadians. In examining the patterns of aboriginal-non-aboriginal exchange relations over the long-term, this dissertation argues that high rates of unemployment and welfare-dependency among contemporary aboriginal communities are relatively recent historical phenomena, with observable roots and causes
Border crossings: The making of German identities in the New World, 1850-1914.
No full textBorder crossings, in both their literal and figurative sense, are central to the experience of migration. This study explores the making of German identities in two localities, Berlin (Ontario) and Buffalo (New York) in the decades between 1850 and 1914. It is interested less in the construction of ethnic boundaries, and, more so, in the social acts of exchange across them. It argues that out of the conversation between 'German', 'Canadian', and 'American' identities a German public emerged. This public was a malleable entity. At times, its boundaries stretched as far as Germany itself. It also spanned Canada and the United States; for German language, culture, and festivity provided common ground for migrants on both sides of the border. Then, again, the German public seemed to splinter in two, with public conversations on German-ness acquiring a distinct Canadian or American tinge. Although the German public bore a remarkable similarity in both Buffalo and Berlin, grounded as it was in a shared festive culture, the national sphere left its indelible print. The discourse of ethnic contributions that loomed so large in the United States never crossed the border into Canada. In Berlin, ethnic leaders instead sought to de-politicize German culture and to reinforce the idea of dual loyalties. In both countries, the idea of race minimized the distance between 'Anglo-Saxons' and 'Teutons'. Yet in reconciling competing national mythologies, German Canadians highlighted the perceived closeness of the German and British Empires, whereas German Americans deftly appropriated the notion of cultural superiority. While its contours were sketched by ethnic leaders, the German public was, by no means, a unified entity. To capture its motion and fluidity, and to minimize a dependence on cultural gatekeepers, this study turns to the colourful history of the singers' festivals (Sangerfeste)---public celebrations of German music, language, and culture---and seeks to unravel the webs of meaning and experience spun around the history of German-language schooling. In so doing, it finds that, by the early twentieth century, the culture of consumption began to rival German festive culture, while the German mother tongue was refashioned into a language of modernity. The German public, in short, had transformed from a means of communication into a symbol of ethnic identity. (Abstract shortened by UMI.
Remoralizing families? Family regulation and state formation in British Columbia, 1862-1940.
No full textThis thesis contributes to scholarly debates over the enactment and effect of age, gender, and kin-based property rights during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The thesis focuses on three distinct waves of reform, involving homestead, married women's property, intestacy, and maintenance legislation. Similar 'waves' of legislation have been documented throughout North America. This thesis brings new evidence to the discussion of legislative intentions and regulatory effects. In doing so, it challenges current conceptualizations of regulatory relationships, an issue of some importance to those interested in matters of governance and legislative efficacy. The evidence collected during this investigation raises several questions respecting current theories of legislative formulation. Current theories hold that family property rights were altered during this period for two reasons: as part of a liberal drive to increase individual rights; and as a result of 'the state's' interest in protecting reproduction from economic volatility. The evidence renders each of these interpretations problematic: first, while women's individual rights were expanded, men faced increasingly overt regulation; and second, with respect to 'the state's' interest in reproduction, this thesis challenges the reification of a neutral, transhistorical state. The evidence reveals self-interested legislative factions with overlapping and contradictory regulatory agendas. In response, this investigation tests 'state formation' theory as a means of understanding legislative formulation and regulatory relationships, commenting on both the strengths and weaknesses of the approach. This thesis also brings new evidence to two areas of interest to students of legislative implementation: the nature of judicial construction, and the value of cases for understanding regulatory relationships. Studies of the married women's property acts, both in the United States and Canada, have revealed that the judiciary interpreted the statutes conservatively, inhibiting full realization of the legislation's equal-rights potential. This thesis revisits the issue, scrutinizing legislative intentions and exploring the doctrines of judicial construction, resulting in the reinterpretation of both legislative intent and judicial behaviour. The second debate surrounding legislative implementation revolves around an emerging sense of the inherent limitations of cases as source material. Both social and legal historians have commented on the narrow scope of case files for the exploration of regulatory relationships. What happens outside the courtroom is of great concern, and case files reveal only a 'slice' of human experience. Moreover, within legal history, several commentators have noted that published cases differ significantly from the vast majority of unpublished cases. This thesis contributes to the understanding of regulation both within and outside the courtroom, employing published and unpublished cases, bureaucratic correspondence and quantitative studies
"A feeling of the responsibility of women for women": The University Women's Club of Ottawa, 1910-1960.
No full textThis thesis examines the first fifty years of the University Women's Club of Ottawa, an organization that brought together women graduates of different universities at a time when women were not admitted to post-secondary education in Ottawa. Previous studies of women's voluntary organizations have concentrated on the period prior to 1930. Using the later period of 1910 to 1960, this thesis examines the changing demographics, mandate and related activities of the UWCO during the war, interwar and postwar periods. Drawing almost entirely on internal records, the thesis shows how the club's focus was increasingly externalized, at the same time as it underwent dramatic changes in demography and size. Club members identified first with their status as university graduates, and later in terms of gender. Both world wars served as watersheds in terms of mandate and activities. The thesis provides significant data to allow comparisons with other groups during this period
Border crossings: The making of German identities in the New World, 1850-1914.
No full textBorder crossings, in both their literal and figurative sense, are central to the experience of migration. This study explores the making of German identities in two localities, Berlin (Ontario) and Buffalo (New York) in the decades between 1850 and 1914. It is interested less in the construction of ethnic boundaries, and, more so, in the social acts of exchange across them. It argues that out of the conversation between 'German', 'Canadian', and 'American' identities a German public emerged. This public was a malleable entity. At times, its boundaries stretched as far as Germany itself. It also spanned Canada and the United States; for German language, culture, and festivity provided common ground for migrants on both sides of the border. Then, again, the German public seemed to splinter in two, with public conversations on German-ness acquiring a distinct Canadian or American tinge. Although the German public bore a remarkable similarity in both Buffalo and Berlin, grounded as it was in a shared festive culture, the national sphere left its indelible print. The discourse of ethnic contributions that loomed so large in the United States never crossed the border into Canada. In Berlin, ethnic leaders instead sought to de-politicize German culture and to reinforce the idea of dual loyalties. In both countries, the idea of race minimized the distance between 'Anglo-Saxons' and 'Teutons'. Yet in reconciling competing national mythologies, German Canadians highlighted the perceived closeness of the German and British Empires, whereas German Americans deftly appropriated the notion of cultural superiority. While its contours were sketched by ethnic leaders, the German public was, by no means, a unified entity. To capture its motion and fluidity, and to minimize a dependence on cultural gatekeepers, this study turns to the colourful history of the singers' festivals (Sangerfeste)---public celebrations of German music, language, and culture---and seeks to unravel the webs of meaning and experience spun around the history of German-language schooling. In so doing, it finds that, by the early twentieth century, the culture of consumption began to rival German festive culture, while the German mother tongue was refashioned into a language of modernity. The German public, in short, had transformed from a means of communication into a symbol of ethnic identity. (Abstract shortened by UMI.
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