The Growth of the Joint Service School in Newfoundland: The Traditionalist-Modernist Conflict

ABSTRACT

In recent years, Newfoundland's denominational education system has come under increasing criticism. Declining enrollments and demands for improved facilities and services have, once again, highlighted the problem of duplication. Consequently, several reports have contributed to an unprecedented interest in jointly operated Roman Catholic—Protestant schools.

This article suggests that the acceptability of these “joint service arrangements” as an alternative to the traditional practice of providing separate schools and the high level of satisfaction with these arrangements can best be understood in light of the continuing conflict between the forces of traditionalism and modernism in contemporary society. Newfoundland, far from being fundamentally different from the rest of Canada and North America, is part of the same modernist-traditionalist conflict; the island's remoteness simply serves to delay the impact of new forces. Thus, while various physical, economic, political, geographical, and other factors act as incentives for interdenominational cooperation at the local level, cooperation occurs within a broader framework characterized by a conflict between the traditional values and secular tendencies of an increasingly modern Newfoundland society.

This contention that interdenominational cooperation in the form of the joint service arrangement represents a step towards greater secularization of education in Newfoundland has implications for the future of Catholic education not only in that province but also in other provinces such as Ontario, where the extension of public funding of Catholic education to all grade levels has only recently become a reality. If this analysis is correct, the time will come when Catholics in Newfoundland (and in other provinces) who choose traditional religious “functional community” over secular efficiency and equal opportunity will have to set up independent Catholic schools outside government-funded systems.