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Historical Consciousness and Being Québécois : Exploring How Young English-Speakers Make Sense of Quebec’s Past and Interact with Its Master Historical Narrative. Dr. Paul Zanazanian, Assistant Professor, Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University.
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Historical Consciousness and Being Québécois: Exploring How Young English-Speakers Make Sense of Quebec’s Past and Interact with Its Master Historical Narrative Dr. Paul Zanazanian, Assistant Professor, Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University. Session 3: The experience of schooling in English language schools: Identities, language, and intergroup relations Two-Day Symposium: Education within a changing linguistic dynamic in Quebec: Transformations and challenges within English-speaking communities Friday, January 15th 2013. Hall Building, Room H-767, Concordia University 1455 de Maisonneuve West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Context • Quebec’s master historical narrative and its disregard of Anglo Quebec’s diverse realities and experiences. • One pressing issue: • The potential impact of this neglect on young English-speakers’ historical consciousness when defining their role and place in Quebec society.
Presentation Objectives • To provide exploratory insight into the potential ways in which young English-speakers interact with Quebec’s historical narrative for knowing and acting Québécois. • To grasp some preliminary understanding of the extent to which English-speaking students “buy into” this collective narrative that is transmitted to them through school history.
Students’ Three Main Inclinations to Interacting with the Master Narrative • Perpetuation through reliance. • Opposition through contradiction – seeking fuller pictures of the national past. • Calls for overcoming important gaps in Q’s national historical narrative. • Calls for recognizing and amending the Q historical narrative’s shortsightedness.
Perpetuation through reliance:ANG 2 • Regarding History: [Q history is not interesting, but it] “isimportant because it is where ‘Canada’ (New France at the time) began to adopt some of its traditions and regular activities, social and economic.” “Quebec history is all about the birth of a nation.”
Perpetuation through reliance:ANG 2 • Repeats and believes importance of MHN for defining who he and his peers are. • Openness to F historical perspectives on the past. • Less hesitant to integrate F vision of Q for knowing and acting Québécois. • The extent to which he adheres to Anglo Quebec’s “stereotypical” or binary portrayal is, however, unclear.
Opposition through Contradiction - Overcoming Important Gaps in the MHN:ANG 3 & ANG 16 • Regarding the lack of much-needed complexity and clarity in H: “I think there should have been more detail in the Canadian history program that would have accurately emphasized the importance and struggles of the people at that time and explained more their situations (e.g. we were never taught about the Battle of Isle-aux-noix (which happened a week or so after the Plains of Abraham) and only knew Montreal surrendered in 1760 officially)” (ANG 3). • Regarding the righting of wrongs through H: “Another important thing for me was learning about the Natives, those here before the Europeans, and how they lived. It grieves me that our ancestors brought them such pain and suffering through our tools and vices, cheating and deceiving to gain wealth, ending with their loss of land, religion and way of life. I think Natives should be better portrayed in history (instead of people only out for scalps)” (ANG 3). • Regarding the one-sidedness of the MHN: “It’s biased on a biased French point of view” (ANG 16).
Opposition through Contradiction - Recognizing and amending MHN’s shortsightedness:ANG 6 & AQA 6 • Commentaries: “The English came here and conquered Quebec. The French were extremely angry. We gave them Quebec and took the rest of Canada and they are still angry. The French always say ‘Je me souviens’ and that is because they will always be angry that the English won”(ANG 6). “The French came to Quebec and established colonies and killed the Indians. The English came here and conquered Quebec”(ANG 6). “So today the Quebecois are still angry with all the other Canadians for having stolen their land. But, the [American] Indians also lost all their land. The Quebecois are thieves just like the English, so it’s time to stop complaining. One must return to being ‘la belle province’ and to finally forget the English” (AQA 6).
Opposition through Contradiction - ANG 3 & ANG 16 and ANG 6 & AQA 6 • Question relevance and problematize the MHN. • Seek to adapt MHN, to varying degrees, to what they perceive to be lacking in it. • MHN does not cater to Q’s narrative/cultural diversity. • Find portrayal of group dynamics narrow and limiting. • Clear disappointment with MHN and History program’s failure to reach to out AQ and First Nations. (And especially for ANG 6 & AQA 6): • Appear disappointed for being excluded from the common “We.”
“Knowing but not Believing” • Wertsch’s (2000) concept outlines a pattern of minority/ marginalized community engagements with MHNs of society. • One may know the official narrative for imagining the nation, may be able to read it in its intended ways, BUT may not believe it, looking instead toward unofficial versions of the past (be they fragmented and incoherent)for knowing and acting in time.
“Knowing but not Believing” • In light of this study’s emerging avenues of narrative resistance: • No clear narrative of the historical experiences of Anglo Quebec surfaces. • Specifically: It is not clear if these students possess a counter narrative – or elements of one – , that offers them a ‘coherent’ alternative perspective on the past to replace their main understanding of the nation. • A storyline they can fully identify with and use for negotiating their own space within Quebec.
Concluding Remarks • QEP’s competency-based approach for integrating social diversity, including English-speaking youth. Some Limits : • Teachers’ knowledge of the epistemological workings of H. • Even if they were to be ideally well-versed, how would they employ such knowledge for fostering mutual group commonality, especially since details of ESQ realities and experiences are absent from the program? • Lack of available and reliable resources as well as of curricular time for focusing on the H of AQ. • Clear presence of certain influential interest groups. • Most important factor: • The lack of a clearly structured narrative that configures the historical content knowledge of AQ’s diverse historical adventures and contributions to the province.
Concluding Remarks • The availability of an AQ historical storyline: • Holds important implications regarding the vitality of ESQ. • Namely, its capacity to regenerate itself as an autonomous and distinct community. • Raises important questions and the reimagining of Quebec City’s role and responsibility for helping historic minority communities (ESQ as well as First Nations) in developing a firm understanding of their own group’s collective identity narrative. • One that group members could readily draw upon and mobilize for cultivating a sense of common belonging to Q as a welcomed and embraced community.
