Skip to Content
Citation: 

Létourneau, Jocelyn. “The Debate on History Education in Quebec.” In New Possibilities for the Past: Shaping History Education in Canada, edited by Penney Clark, 81-96. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011.

Abstract/Summary: 

In this chapter Létourneau focuses on the change in the high school history education curriculum in 2007 by the Quebec Ministry of Education. The new reforms no longer focus solely on a Québec national history but are geared more towards history and citizenship education. As with most debates, there are those who support the new reforms and those who oppose them. The opposition feels as though the new curriculum will dismantle the collective identity of Québec’s youth. The purpose of the chapter is not to detail the abovementioned debate; rather, it focuses on the debate’s evolution and its bearing on history teaching in Québec. Létourneau begins with a discussion of the background of the proposed changes and how they are currently affecting Québec history education. He then turns to the crux of the debate and details the specifics of the new history curriculum, how it is similar and different from the old curriculum and what is being disputed. According to Létourneau, the new curriculum is being disputed in three different ways: as a transmission crisis, as taking education off course, and as a distortion of history. The chapter concludes with a look at the controversy at present, where the author sees the debate and its effects on history education in Québec in the future.

Source/Credit: 
Erika Smith