Identities and Engagement, Oct 17-18

Building on nine successful national conferences on teaching Canada’s history, the Association for Canadian Studies (ACS) in collaboration with l’Association québécoise pour l'enseignement en univers social (AQUES) will be holding the 10^th such national conference entitled Identities and Engagement. This French language conference will be held on October 17-18, 2013 at the Chateau Bromont hotel, in Bromont, Quebec.

The 2013 edition of the event on the teaching, learning and communication of the history of Canada will address various issues concerning Canadian history, identity and engagement of students as well as including a number of sessions on the francophonie in Canada and teaching history and social studies in French outside of Quebec. In Addition the ACS will mark the 50^th anniversary of the royal commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism with a number of sessions on the Commission and its impact on the development of Bilingualism and Biculturalism in Canada over the last 50 years.

The ACS invites proposals for sessions.  These may be individual workshop sessions, panel or other types of conference sessions.  The ACS will cover the travel costs and one night hotel costs for all session proposals that are accepted. All conference participants must pay the conference registration fee of $270.00 ($140.00 for students).

The conference organizing committee welcomes proposals dealing with methods for teaching our history and obstacles to overcome in making history relevant to the daily lives of students in the classroom. We invite submissions on such topics as the impact of historic conflicts on Canadian identity, history and geography. Other topics include the social and economic characteristics of Canada during the first two decades of the nineteenth century, the nature and evolution of relations between British, French and Aboriginal peoples in Canada and the challenge of teaching history in our classrooms. The organizers are seeking proposals from various disciplines and perspectives.

We ask that proposals be no longer than 200 words.  Proposals will be evaluated by the Conference steering committee of the Association for Canadian Studies. Individual sessions will be 20 minutes in length and group session will be 75 minutes.  Visit our web site at www.acs-aec.ca to register for the conference as well as for additional conference information.  Please send proposals by e-mail to James Ondrick,  Director of  Programs of the Association for Canadian Studies at james.ondrick@acs-aec.ca or call (514) 925-3097 before the deadline of May 27, 2013.

The conference will be pertinent to all those interested in issues revolving around the teaching and communicating of Canadian history.  Professors, students, teachers, researchers, civil servants, decision makers and members of non-profit and history related organizations will benefit from the conference sessions, as well as the opportunity to meet and hear experts from across Canada.

The conference will look at the most effective methods in teaching history, address current issues in communicating history and look at the relevance of history in our daily lives.  The event will bring together teachers and pedagogical consultants from across Quebec, as well from a number of provinces throughout Canada. In addition, many of Quebec’s and Canada’s leading academics and authors as well as researchers and representatives from museums, archives, government, non-governmental organizations and media will be present.

The theme this year of identities and commitment is closely linked to the different identities that make up our Canadian society. Thoughts on francophone integration, multiethnicity or deep research of our own identity will be a subject discussed at the conference. The commitment goes hand in hand with that identity, whether through social involvement or the energy deployed by our youth: If the identity is well defined, the commitment is that bigger. This identity construction and commitment grows daily in our classes in history and education for citizenship, geography and contemporary world. Across the disciplines of the social universe, we are helping to shed light on these different identities and encourage commitment social or personal for each of our students.