Liberal Education, Civic Education, and the Canadian Regime

Liberal Education, Civic Education, and the Canadian Regime
Author: David W. Livingstone
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2015-10-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0773597859

Shortly after Canadian confederation, Thomas D'Arcy McGee proclaimed that education was "an essential condition of our political independence" and that its role was to form citizens for the new regime. Comparing this idea of education for citizenship, or civic education, to the modern goals of education, Liberal Education, Civic Education, and the Canadian Regime explores the founders' principles, their sources, and the challenges that threaten their vision for Canada. The collection's first essays analyze the political thought of early Canadians such as Brown, McGee, Ryerson, and Bourinot, while later chapters examine enduring principles of liberal democracy derived from Aristotle, de Tocqueville, and Hobbes. The final chapters bring the discussion forward to such topics as the decline of Canadian Catholic liberal arts colleges and the emerging role of our Supreme Court as a self-appointed "moral tutor." Moreover, as it deals with the changing roles of universities in contemporary Canada, Liberal Education, Civic Education, and the Canadian Regime engages current debates about the value and place of a traditional liberal education and the consequences of turning our back on the concepts that inspired our founding leaders. Considering whether Canada’s early documents and traditions can revive past debates and shed light on contemporary issues, this highly original collection presents education as an essential condition of our independence and asks whether current educational principles are threatening Canadians’ capacity for self-government.

Citizenship, the Self and the Other

Citizenship, the Self and the Other
Author: Malik Ajani
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2015-02-05
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1443875120

In today’s world, people speak more than 6000 languages and identify with thousands of cultural groups and a large variety of different religions. Despite such a number of differences, these and other features of human diversity are housed politically, inside roughly 200 nation-states. Globally speaking, a diverse citizenry is an unavoidable fact for most countries across the planet. Additionally, developments such as transnational migrations, rising socio-economic inequalities, the “War(s) on Terror”, and political movements based on absolutist ideologies continue to raise broader questions of justice, governance, equality, quality of life and social cohesion. As such, recent decades have witnessed a revival of debates concerning what it means to be a “citizen”. In response to such trends, nations such as Australia, Canada, and Britain have committed themselves to teaching citizenship through their national curriculums. Moreover, all European Union member states have integrated some form of citizenship education into their primary and secondary curriculums. Acknowledging such developments, this book uses discussions with citizenship educators as a backdrop for a critical analysis of various conceptions of citizenship, such as liberal, social-democratic, civic-republican, cosmopolitan and multicultural citizenship. It also analyses how these educators approach the contemporary reality of nation states, which are richly composed of a diverse citizenry. Given Britain’s transformation into a multi-ethnic and multi-faith society, this book develops, as a case study, an understanding of how religious and cultural difference can be approached. What makes this work unique is that it gleans ideas and research from a wide field of international scholarship, such as political science, philosophy, education, and cultural studies. A further unique aspect of the book is that it uses the q-methodology, a research method used to study people’s viewpoints, to reveal some shared perspectives on citizenship. In doing so, the path traced here leads to the discovery of spaces where citizenship educators – despite their ethnic/religious diversity – display “common ground” on values, beliefs and aims related to citizenship. This book will prove to be a useful resource for academics, educators and political leaders, as well as interfaith and civil society professionals at large. It is worth mentioning that even though this book has benefited from the generously contributed ideas of citizenship educators in England, its scholarly research, lessons, arguments, analysis and suggestions, which focus on multi-faith and multi-ethnic societies, will also be useful elsewhere.

Diversity and Distrust

Diversity and Distrust
Author: Stephen MACEDO
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2009-06-30
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0674040406

Extending the ideas of John Rawls, Macedo defends a "civic liberalism" in culturally diverse democracies that supports the legitimacy of reasonable efforts to inculcate shared political virtues while leaving many larger questions of meaning and value to private communities.

Multiculturalism and Religious Identity

Multiculturalism and Religious Identity
Author: Sonia Sikka
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2014-06-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0773592210

How, and to what extent, can religion be included within commitments to multiculturalism? Multiculturalism and Religious Identity addresses this question by examining the political recognition and management of religious identity in Canada and India. In multicultural policy, practice, and literature, religion has until recently not been included within broader discussions of multiculturalism, perhaps due to worries of potential for conflict with secularism. This collection undertakes a contemporary analysis of how the Canadian and Indian states each approach religious diversity through social and political policies, as well as how religion and secularism meet both philosophically and politically in contested public space. Although Canada and India have differing political and religious histories - leading to different articulations of multiculturalism, religious diversity, and secularism - both countries share a commitment to ensuring fair treatment for the different religious communities they include. Combining broader theoretical and normative reflections with close case studies, Multiculturalism and Religious Identity leads the way to addressing these timely issues in the Canadian and Indian contexts.

Religious Diversity in Canadian Public Schools

Religious Diversity in Canadian Public Schools
Author: Dia Dabby
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2022-02-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0774864664

Canadian public schools have long been entrusted with socializing children. Yet this duty can rest uneasily alongside religious diversity questions. Grounding its analysis in three seminal Supreme Court cases, Religious Diversity in Canadian Public Schools reveals complex legal processes that compress multidimensional conversations into an oppositional format and exclude the voices of children themselves. Dia Dabby contends that schools are in fact microsystems with the power to construct their own rules and relationships. This compelling work encourages a deeper conversation about how religion is mediated through public schools, inviting a critical reassessment of the role of law in education.

Discipline, Devotion, and Dissent

Discipline, Devotion, and Dissent
Author: Graham P. McDonough
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2013-09-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1554588693

The education provided by Canada’s faith-based schools is a subject of public, political, and scholarly controversy. As the population becomes more religiously diverse, the continued establishment and support of faith-based schools has reignited debates about whether they should be funded publicly and to what extent they threaten social cohesion. These discussions tend to occur without considering a fundamental question: How do faith-based schools envision and enact their educational missions? Discipline, Devotion, and Dissent offers responses to that question by examining a selection of Canada’s Jewish, Catholic, and Islamic schools. The daily reality of these schools is illuminated through essays that address the aims and practices that characterize these schools, how they prepare their students to become citizens of a multicultural Canada, and how they respond to dissent in the classroom. The essays in this book reveal that Canada’s faith-based schools sometimes succeed and sometimes struggle in bridging the demands of the faith and the need to create participating citizens of a multicultural society. Discussion surrounding faith-based schools in Canada would be enriched by a better understanding of the aims and practices of these schools, and this book provides a gateway to the subject.

Cultural Diversity, Liberal Pluralism and Schools

Cultural Diversity, Liberal Pluralism and Schools
Author: Neil Burtonwood
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2006-09-27
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1134217528

With debates on the relationship between cultural diversity and the role of schools raging on both sides of the Atlantic, the time is apt for a philosophical work that shines new light on the issues involved and that brings a fresh perspective to a political and emotive discussion. Here Burtonwood brings the writing of British philosopher Isaiah Berlin to bear on the subject of multiculturalism in schools, the first time that his work has been applied to matters of education. Tackling the often-contradictory issues surrounding liberal pluralism, this book poses serious questions for the education system in the US and in the UK.

The New Orthodoxy

The New Orthodoxy
Author: Bruce J Clemenger
Publisher: Castle Quay Books
Total Pages: 122
Release: 2022-11-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1988928818

This book examines the founding non-sectarian approach to Canadian statecraft that accommodated religious and cultural diversity. The 1960’s promise of political liberalism embraced in Canada was to provide a philosophy of government that facilitates the individual's vision and pursuit of the good life. Decades later, the promotion of individual autonomy and fraternity by governments and the courts threatens to undermine the very freedom governments claim to promote and protect. Bruce J. Clemenger presents a biblically-based model of public and political engagement and a defense of religious freedom, especially the freedom to disagree, in an increasingly secularist state. A timely work.

Faith in Democracy? Religion and Politics in Canada

Faith in Democracy? Religion and Politics in Canada
Author: Boris DeWiel
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2009-01-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1443804290

This collection of essays questions the capacity of Canadian democracy to promote religious pluralism and recognize disparate faith groups as legitimate players on the political stage. These are more than rhetorical questions, as issues and public policies in contemporary Canada reflect an increasing concern that religion and religious belief ought not to intrude in political debate and matters of governance. Despite playing an active role in Canadian politics in the past, religious faith now risks relegation to the private sector. Efforts to push religious belief outside the public square set a dangerous precedent, provide rationale for further exclusion rather than inclusion, and logically culminate in monism rather than pluralism. Faith in Democracy focuses on contemporary challenges to religious pluralism in Canada with attention to the changing religious landscape throughout the country. These challenges are both old and new. They include such tasks as reconciling universal and particular perspectives of liberalism in law and recognizing the limits of secularism as an emergent dominant faith. How Canada responds to these challenges will not only influence public policy, but also test its commitment to democracy.