Historical Consciousness and the Construction of Inter-Group Relations: The Case of Francophone and Anglophone History School Teachers in Quebec

The author looks at the effects of historical consciousness on the negotiation of ethnicity and the structuring of group boundaries among history teachers in Quebec. The province's ambiguous ethnic dominance between Francophones and Anglophones sets the stage for revealing how teachers from Quebec's parallel history classrooms historicize meanings of the past for ethno-cultural awareness and agency. The author maintains that depending on how inter-group realities are constructed, these educators can either promote inter-group comprehension or preserve rigid co-existence. The author undertook a study on inter-group attitudes and mutual in-class treatments between Francophone and Anglophone educators in Montreal history classrooms. What the author found was that most Francophone teachers are indifferent to Anglo-Quebec social realities and historical experiences, while all Anglophone teachers know and transmit those of the Franco-Québécois to their students. Mirroring each group's sociological status, the author concludes that this divergence implies a dissimilarity in how past inter-group relations are historicized.

PhD dissertation

Université de Montréal

Montréal

2009

xiv-200-xxiii p.

en