This article revisits themes from Clark’s “Clio in the Curriculum: The Jury is Out” (Canadian Social Studies 32(2) (1998): 45-8), where the author suggested history education was “at a low ebb” in Canadian schools. Clark now argues history education has become “increasingly secure” in its curricular place due to recent promising academic and organizational developments.

Between 1970 and 1990, several factors evoked both academic and public criticism of history education in Canadian schools—from the publication of ‘Canadianized’ American textbooks and their insufficient representation of women and aboriginal groups, to a move away from historical content and increased emphasis on contemporary issues and “critical thinking and skill development.” The Dominion Institute’s national history projects generated concern about public commitment to democratic citizenship and knowledge of Canadian history, and underscored history’s “precarious” positioning within an interdisciplinary Social Studies curriculum.

Since the mid-1990s, however, several key developments have served to revitalize history education and teaching in English Canada. Clark points to the publication of the “Lacoursière Report” in Quebec, and Seixas’ article “Conceptualizing the Growth of Historical Understanding,” both in 1996, as groundbreaking in their discussion of curriculum policy and conceptualization. The 1999 “Giving the Past a Future Conference,” sponsored by the McGill Institute, provided a forum for history education stakeholders to debate national standards and launched the creation of Historica, which provided professional resources and learning opportunities for teachers and students. The creation of the Centre for the Study for Historical Consciousness at UBC in 2001, and the Historical Thinking Project in 2006, supported the development of a conceptual framework for historical thinking that is now embedded in provincial curriculum documents, school textbooks and teacher education programs.

Clark suggests that, in addition to academic and curricular developments, various public organizations have also contributed to a resurgence in Canadian history education. The Association for Canadian Studies, Canada’s History, CBC and Radio-Canada, and Historica Canada (created in 2009 through the amalgamation of the Historica Foundation of Canada and the Dominion Institute) have made teacher resources, conferences and awards more readily available across Canada. The pan-Canadian The History Education Network/Histoire et éducation en réseau (THEN/HiER) was created in 2005 to provide opportunities for history teachers, academics, public historians and textbook authors and publishers to “promote research-informed teaching.”

Overall, Clark suggests history education has benefited from a “coherent conceptual framework,” increasing academic historians’ involvement, improved resource publication and a growing number of public history organizations which have collectively contributed to a “renewed vitality” in Canadian history education, securing its pedagogical place in public education despite previous challenges to its disciplinary status.