SUBJECT STATUS AND CURRICULUM CHANGE: COMMERCIAL EDUCATION IN LONDON, ONTARIO, 1920‐1940

Abstract

A case study of commercial studies in London, Ontario, Canada, reveals one aspect of the complex interaction of curriculum change and subject status. During the 1920s, commercial educators at the London Technical and Commercial High School responded to a perceived marginalization of their subject's status by introducing two new courses. Since the decline of commercial studies had followed an influx of female students, and children coming from families headed by manual workers, the subject teachers designed the courses to attract males in one case, and children from higher income groups in the other. Thus, in an attempt to raise their own professional status, commercial educators at the school constructed a curriculum in which class and gender characteristics served to segregate students, structure their schooling experience, and provide differentiated educational outcomes.