Canadian Culture And National Identity

Scholarly Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Cultural Studies - Canada, grade: -, York University, language: English, comment: Widely published articles on multiculturalism. Teaches at York University. Former school principal and school superintendent. Nominated for the York Presidents Teaching Award 2010, abstract: Many have argued that there is no such thing as a Canadian culture or identity. This article explores the history of how schools in the past have shaped a national identity and how cultures transmit their vaules and traditions to their young. This article argues that there are twelve commonplaces about Canada that all Canadians, regardless of where they live or how long they have lived here can identify with. The schools across the country have an obligation to debate, argue and explore these twelve commonplaces thereby promoting a shared Canadian culture that is fluid, flexible and evolving. It argues that these twelve are not fixed in stone but are just a starting point for "keeping the conversation going." It promotes a revisioning of our culture throiugh a myulticulturalism prism.

Mapping the contradictions and ambiguities in the cultural politics of Canadian identity, The House of Difference opens up new understandings of the operations of tolerance and Western liberalism in a supposedly post-colonial era. Combining an analysis of the construction of national identity in both past and present-day public culture, with interviews with white Canadians, The House of Difference explores how ideas of racial and cultural difference are articulated in colonial and national projects, and in the subjectivities of people who consider themselves mainstream, or simply Canadian-Canadians.

Scientific Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Cultural Studies - Canada, York University, language: English, abstract: Many have argued that there is no such thing as a Canadian culture or identity. This article explores the history of how schools in the past have shaped a national identity and how cultures transmit their vaules and traditions to their young. This article argues that there are twelve commonplaces about Canada that all Canadians, regardless of where they live or how long they have lived here can identify with. The schools across the country have an obligation to debate, argue and explore these twelve commonplaces thereby promoting a shared Canadian culture that is fluid, flexible and evolving. It argues that these twelve are not fixed in stone but are just a starting point for "keeping the conversation going". It promotes a revisioning of our culture throiugh a myulticulturalism prism.

This book attempts to explore and develop the concept of "national unity" in Canada, as a diverse society of many peoples. A cosmopolitan conception of society in Canada is utilized to develop this theme. This conception will be, in part, discussed in the context of the issue of "multiculturalism".

Through readings of literature, canonical history texts, studies of museum displays and media analysis, this work explores the historical formation of myths of Canadian national identity and then how these myths were challenged (and affirmed during the 1990 standoff at Oka. It draws upon history, literary criticism, anthropology, studies in nationalism and ethnicity and post-colonial theory.

Canada and the British World surveys Canada's national history through a British lens. In a series of essays focusing on the social, cultural, and intellectual aspects of Canadian identity over more than a century, the complex and evolving relationship between Canada and the larger British World is revealed. Examining the transition from the strong belief of nineteenth-century Canadians in the British character of their country to the realities of modern multicultural Canada, this book eschews nostalgia in its endeavour to understand the dynamic and complicated society in which Canadians did and do live.

The Other Quiet Revolution traces the under-examined cultural transformation woven through key developments in the formation of Canadian nationhood, from the 1946 Citizenship Act and the 1956 Suez crisis to the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963-70) and the adoption of the federal multiculturalism policy in 1971. Jos� Igartua analyzes editorial opinion, political rhetoric, history textbooks, and public opinion polls to show how Canada's self-conception as a British country dissolved as struggles with bilingualism and biculturalism, as well as Quebec's constitutional demands, helped to fashion new representations of national identity in English-speaking Canada based on the civic principle of equality.

A Border Within addresses the question of English Canadian identity by exploring whether a plurality of discourses can lead to other than a fragmented society. Ian Angus examines the relationship between globalizing social movements and the particularities of identity politics by extending the theories on identity of Harold Innis and George Grant, two seminal figures in Canadian political philosophy, to develop a philosophy applicable to the contemporary social issues of multiculturalism and environmentalism.