Citizenship Education and Exclusion: An Analysis of Authorized History Textbooks and Children’s Books in Ontario, 1866-1950

From the advent of the Liberal government of Wilfred Laurier in 1896, to the Citizenship Act of 1947, the Ontario Department of Education facilitated the teaching of citizenship education through its authorization of history textbooks. Using a critical discourse analysis framework constructed from the theories and analyses of five prominent historians: Reinhart Koselleck, Edward Said, Quentin Skinner, Ken Osborne and Ian McKay, this paper explores how a principle of exclusion was pivotal in supporting an Anglocentric nationalist agenda. History textbooks are examined for evidence of the exclusion of women, Indigenous peoples, immigrants, people of colour, and the working class. This exploration is compared with an examination of children’s books written during the same period. The aim of the comparison is to identify possible alternative citizenship ideals that emerge in fictional narratives as compared with authorized historical narratives, a comparison that, as yet, has not been done before.