With over 1 in 5 Canadians identifying as an immigrant, Canada has been proud to call itself a nation of immigrants with a commitment to supporting refugees, from accepting thousands of Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s to Syrians fleeing civil war in 2015. In 2017, 44,000 refugees came as government-sponsored or privately sponsored refugees,…

This essay proposes a conception of citizenship that highlights its political aspects. Based on the work of Balibar, Rancière, and Biesta, it is argued that democratic citizenship education must include the education of equality. This means that students must have the opportunity to experience not only the membership aspect of citizenship that…

As a postsecondary educator with most of my experience teaching in colleges, but with some also in undergraduate and postgraduate studies both in Canada and the United States, I have been teaching politics and government for close to fifty years. That time has been spent not only undertaking empirical analyses of political behaviour and the…

This commentary closes this special issue with the reflections from two individuals who, like many in these fields, cross the boundaries between scholar, activist and practitioner in their work with young people, teachers and wider society. They bring their experiences working with difficult pasts in the service of better futures to the…

Postsecondary teacher, Howard Doughty, has been teaching politics and government for close to fifty years. That time has been spent not only working with the empirical analysis of political behaviour and the normative analysis of political theory, but also in the practical activity of promoting understanding of what is frequently called civic…

This theoretical article draws from the political thought of Jacques Rancière to trouble some taken-for-granted conceptions of citizenship education. Rancière's notion of politics and dissensus (as opposed to consensus) can lay the groundwork for a version of citizenship that challenges what is deemed sensible, visible, who is counted in…

This article presents an interview with John Ralston Saul, one of Canada's pre-eminent thinkers. In the interview, Mr. Saul shares his provocative and compelling thoughts on the state of Canada's public education systems.

If students from a totalitarian nation were secretly transported to a Canadian classroom to continue their lessons with new teachers and a new curriculum, would they be able to tell the difference? Both classes might engage students in volunteer activities in the community--picking up litter from a nearby park, or helping out at a busy…

In this essay, Bruce Maxwell, David Waddington, Kevin McDonough, Andree-Anne Cormier, and Marina Schwimmer compare two competing approaches to social integration policy, Multiculturalism and Interculturalism, from the perspective of the issue of the state funding and regulation of conservative religious schools. After identifying the key…

Drawing on historical and contemporary scholarship on citizenship education, I have outlined how such education both excludes those outside the normative construction of the Canadian citizen and fails to prepare students for participation in the public sphere. I argue that contemporary citizenship education is in danger of creating individualistic…

The summer of 2006 saw the eyes of the world, including those of Canadians, transfixed on Germany as 32 teams from across the globe competed for the World Cup of football--but due to the lack of capacity to support the development of world class Canadian players and teams, Canada perennially cannot mount a team able to qualify for World Cup…

In this article, I have used the 2004 Greatest Canadian contest as an example of media's educational function. Contrary to mainstream discourse of gender-neutral citizenship, this contest reiterates a notion of Canadian citizenship as masculinized, classed, and raced. Gramsci's concepts of "hegemony," "ideology", and…

If a liberal arts education should prepare our students to participate in a meaningful way in democracy, what does that mean for how we design our courses across disciplines? In this paper, I first address the question: who should teach democratic skills? Using an upper-level course in Canadian politics, I then illustrate how to explicitly…

In this article, I argue that despite common assumptions that peace education efforts achieve social change, it is often a normalizing, nation-building project that obscures hierarchies of power. Focussing on a lesson from a popular peace education program currently used in Canadian schools, I have analyzed the convergences between peace and…

The Canadian article presents a rationale for including citizenship education in special classes for retarded students, and outlines some citizenship objectives for the retarded. (DLS)