ABSTRACT

Recently, the Canadian government has initiated a wide range of actions and gestures aimed at reconciling historical injustices including the state’s relationship with Indigenous peoples and nations. Reforming K-12 education to adequately teach Canada’s difficult past has been a key priority in this movement, leading to curriculum change across the country. This article explores the development of a new curriculum in British Columbia that explicitly aims to address historical injustice and reconciliation. Drawing from an analysis of curriculum documents and interviews with six curriculum writers, this paper illustrates how political motivations and social pressures to redress ‘historical wrongs’ are adapted and translated into curricular content expectations. This article argues that the new social studies curriculum places greater attention on historical injustice and in doing so shifts the larger goals informing social studies education in Canada. At the same time these shifts adopt state discourses of reconciliation and multiculturalism which limit their ability to adequately engage the difficult past. This paper raises questions and makes suggestions about the possible roles and limitations for social studies and history education in pursuit of reconciliation and redress in post-conflict and settler colonial contexts.

摘要

最近，加拿大政府采取了各种行动和姿态，旨在调和历史上的不公正现象，包括该州与土著民族和民族的关系。改革K-12教育以充分教授加拿大的艰难过去一直是这项运动的关键优先事项，从而导致全国各地的课程改革。本文探讨了不列颠哥伦比亚省一项新课程的发展，该课程明确旨在解决历史上的不公正与和解。通过对课程文档的分析和对六位课程作者的访谈，本文阐述了如何纠正“历史错误”的政治动机和社会压力，并将其转化为课程内容期望。本文认为，新的社会研究课程更加关注历史的不公正现象，从而改变了加拿大社会研究教育的更大目标。同时，这些转变采用了和解和多元文化主义的国家话语，从而限制了他们充分参与艰难的过去的能力。本文提出了一些问题，并提出了有关社会研究和历史教育在冲突后和定居者殖民地背景下追求和解与补救的可能作用和局限性的建议。