Reform as Social Tracking: The Case of Industrial Education in Ontario 1870-1900

Authors

  • T. R. Morrison University of Manitoba

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11575/jet.v8i2.43627

Abstract

The industrial education movement in Canada has been assessed by historians in two ways: as the educational expression of the Dominion's national development policy, and as an important step closer to the egalitarian ideal of universal, state-supported compulsory schooling.' Each interpretation marries industrial education to cherished social values: for the former, economic growth and the latter, equality of opportunity. The present study, based on an analysis of the group support and social functions associated with attempts to introduce various forms of industrial education, poses a counter-argument: that industrial education programs surfaced as one facet of an urban-centered, conservative, social reform movement which encompassed, as one of its vital concerns, the establishment of controls over the character, behavior and occupational future of poor and delinquent children.2 As such, industrial education was more a bane, than a boon, to the working class.

Author Biography

T. R. Morrison, University of Manitoba

T.R. Morrison is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Manitoba, co-editor of Options: Reforms and Alternatives for Canadian Education (Holt-Rinehart Winston
1973), and Director of Social Concerns and Curriculum Development Project, Manitoba

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Published

2018-05-11

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 2 (1974)

Section

Articles

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