Banal Race‐thinking: Ties of blood, Canadian history textbooks and ethnic nationalism

Abstract

This paper examines how the idea of “race” is represented in high school Canadian history textbooks. It looks at textbooks authorized by the Province of Ontario between 1940 and 1960 and those authorized after 2000. It is argued in this paper that even though historical racisms have increasingly made their way into Canadian history textbooks as valid and important topics of study, and despite explicit efforts by those responsible for the production of these textbooks to clarify the meaning and consequences of racism, the idea of “race” has persisted in much the same way as it did centuries ago – as a take‐for‐granted fact of Nature tied to ideas about human type, lineage and heritage. Through problematic use of the term “race” and through a redundant emphasis on seemingly neutral categories such as origin, ethnicity and descent, the textbooks preoccupy themselves with human typology and articulate a sense that blood matters in the constitution and construction of the Canadian nation.

Notes

Canadian Multiculturalism Act (21 July 1988).

A version of this paper was presented to the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association in Chicago on April 25, 2003. Thank you to Tim Stanley, Gada Mahrouse, and three anonymous reviewers for helpful feedback on earlier drafts.

Ignatieff, Michael. Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism. London: BBC Books, 1993: 3–4. For a critique of Ignatieff, see Billig, Michael. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage, 1995: 46–49.

Yack, Bernard. “The Myth of Civic Nationalism.” National Post 1 July 2000; Yack, Bernard. “The Myth of the Civic Nation.” Critical Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Politics and Society 10, no. 2 (1996). It is, however, frequently asserted that the more problematic of the two nationalisms, that is, ethnic nationalism, exists within the borders of the civic state in such places as Quebec. See, for example, Ignatieff. Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism. One recent Canadian history textbook also makes this distinction between ethnic and civic nationalism and similarly positions Canada (but not Quebec separatists) as a model of the latter. See, Bain, Colin et al. Making History – the Story of Canada in the Twentieth Century. Toronto: Pearson Education Canada, 2000: 371.

Goldberg, David Theo. The Racial State. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002: 195.

Yack. “The Myth of Civic Nationalism;” Yack. “The Myth of the Civic Nation.”

Willinsky, John. Learning to Divide the World: Education at Empire’s End. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998.

Canada and Newfoundland Education Association. “Report of the Committee for the Study of Canadian History Textbooks.” Canadian education 1, no. 1 (1945); Neatby, Hilda. So Little for the Mind: An Indictment of Canadian Education. Toronto: Clarke Irwin, 1953; Osborne, Ken. “An Early Example of the Analysis of History Textbooks in Canada.” Canadian Social Studies 29, no. 1 (1994). In the international context, a few examples include, Ahier, John. Industry, Children and the Nation: An Analysis of National Identity in School Textbooks. London: Falmer Press, 1988; Blackburn, Gilmer W. Education in the Third Reich: A Study of Race and History in Nazi Textbooks. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985; Elson, R. Guardians of Tradition: American Schoolbooks of the Nineteenth Century. Lincoln, NE, 1964; FitzGerald, Frances. America Revised: History Textbooks in The Twentieth Century. Toronto: Little, Brown, 1979; Foster, Stuart J. “The Struggle for American Identity: Treatment of Ethnic Groups in United States History Textbooks.” History of Education 28, no. 3 (1999); Kambayashi, Kikuko. The Expansion of Treatments of Japan in High School Textbooks in American History, 1951–1972. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, School of Education, 1975; Loewen, J. W. Lies My Teacher Told Me. New York: New Press, 1995.

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Tomkins. A Common Countenance: Stability and Change in the Canadian Curriculum, 402.

Manitoba Indian Brotherhood. The Shocking Truth About Indians in Textbooks. Winnipeg: Textbook Evaluation and Revision Committee of the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood, 1974; Sluman, Norma. “Survey of Canadian History Textbooks Now in Use in Manitoba Schools.” The Curriculum Revision Committee Department of Education, 1964.

Lupul, M. R. “The Portrayal of Canada’s ‘Other’ Peoples in Senior High School History and Social Studies Textbooks in Alberta, 1905 to the Present.” Alberta Journal of Educational Research 22, no. 1 (1976); Mattu Leela and Daniel Villeneuve. “Eliminating Group Prejudice in Social Studies Textbooks.” The Human Rights Commission of British Columbia, 1979; McDiarmid G. and D. Pratt. Teaching Prejudice: A Content Analysis of Social Studies Textbooks Authorized for Use in Ontario. Toronto: The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 1971; O’Neill, G. Patrick. “Prejudice Towards Indians in History Textbooks: A 1984 Profile.” History and Social Science Teacher 20, no. 1 (1984); Osborne, Kenneth W. “Hard‐Working, Temperate and Peaceable’ – the Portrayal of Workers in Canadian History Textbooks.” In Monographs in Education, edited by Alexander Gregor and Keith Wilson. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba, 1980; Samson, Réal and Andrew S. Hughes. “The Treatment of Acadians in the Public School Textbooks of Nova Scotia.” Atlantic Institute of Education and Université Sainte‐Anne, 1982; Tupper, Jennifer. “Silent Voices, Silent Stories: Japanese Canadians in Social Studies Textbooks.” Alberta Journal of Educational Research XLVIII, no. 4 (2002).

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Selden, Steven. Inheriting Shame: The Story of Eugenics and Racism in America. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 1999; Willinsky. Learning to Divide the World: Education at Empire’s End.

Stanley, Timothy J. “The Struggle for History: Historical Narratives and Anti‐Racist Pedagogy.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 19, no. 1 (1998): 42; Stanley, Timothy J. “Why I Killed Canadian History: Towards an Anti‐Racist History in Canada.” Histoire Sociale/Social History 33, no. 65 (2001).

Foucault, Michel. “Truth and Power.” In Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977, edited by Colin Gordon. New York: Pantheon Books, 1980. See also Marci Green and Ian Grosvenor. “Making Subjects: History‐Writing, Education and Race Categories.” Paedagogica Historica XXXIII, no. 3 (1997): 884.

Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Revised ed. New York: Viking Press, 1964: 276.

Cf. Billig. Banal Nationalism.

Banton, Michael. Racial Theories. Second ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998; Frederickson, George M. Racism: A Short History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002: 56–58; Gould, Stephen Jay. The Mismeasure of Man. Revised ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996: 390–412; Wood, Peter H. “‘If Toads Could Speak’: How the Myth of Race Took Hold and Flourished in the Minds of Europe’s Renaissance Colonizers.” In Racism and Anti‐Racism in World Perspective, edited by Benjamin P. Bowser. London: Sage, 1995: 40.

Foucault, Michel. “Society Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the College De France, 1975–1976, edited by Arnold I. Davidson et al., translated by David Macey. New York: Picador, 2003. See also Allen, Theodore W. The Invention of the White Race, Volume One: Racial Oppression and Social Control. New York: Verso Books, 1994; id., The Invention of the White Race, Volume Two: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo‐America. New York: Verso Books, 1997; Todorov, Tzvetan. The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other, translated by Richard Howard. New York: Harper Perennial, 1984.

Arendt. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Second ed. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1973; Rattansi, Ali. “Racism, ‘Postmodernism’ and Reflexive Multiculturalism.” In Critical Multiculturalism: Rethinking Multiculturalist and Antiracist Education, edited by Stephen May. Philadelphia: Falmer Press, 1999; Stoler, Ann Laura. Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things. London: Duke University Press, 1995.

Arendt. The Origins of Totalitarianism, 158–184.

Gilroy, Paul. Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.

For example, Boxhill, Bernard. “Introduction.” In Race and Racism, edited by Bernard Boxhill. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Cf. Dei, G. J. S. Anti‐Racism Education: Theory and Practice. Halifax, N.S.: Fernwood Publishing, 1996, 28; Goldberg, David Theo. Racist Culture. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1993: 54.

For this conceptualization of “racialization,” I am drawing primarily upon Goldberg, Racist Culture; Miles, Robert. Racism. London: Routledge, 1989. See also, Loveman, M. “Comment and Reply: Is ‘Race’ Essential?.” American Sociological Review 64, no. 6 (1999); McLaren, P. and R. Torres. “Racism and Multicultural Education: Rethinking ‘Race’ and ‘Whiteness’ in Late Capitalism.” In Critical Multiculturalism: Rethinking Multicultural and Antiracist Education, edited by Stephen May. Philadelphia: Falmer Press, 1999.

Willinsky. Learning to Divide the World: Education at Empire’s End.

See Ontario. Ministry of Education. Textbooks: Circular 14 (1940–1997); Ontario. Ministry of Education. Authorized Learning Materials (2000); and Ontario. Ministry of Education. The Trillium List. (2002). As one anonymous reviewer of this paper observed, the problem of banal race‐thinking that I document here may well have been identified by those involved in the processes of selecting and evaluating these textbooks as authorized learning resources. While certainly an important point to consider, it is one that goes beyond the focus of my study, which is on the representations contained in the textbooks themselves.

Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language, translated by Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon Books, 1972: 38; id., The Order of Things: An Archaelogy of the Human Sciences. Second ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1994: 311; id. “Truth and Juridical Forms.” In Power: Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984, Volume 3, edited by James D. Faubion. New York: New Press, 2000.

Gidney, Robert Douglas. From Hope to Harris: The Reshaping of Ontario’s Schools. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999.

Van den Berghe. “Ethnicity as Kin Selection: The Biology of Nepotism.” In Racism, edited by Leonard Harris. Amherst–New York: Humanity Books, 1999, 50.

Chafe, J. W. and A. R. M. Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be. Toronto: Longmans, Green, 1948, 105. See also Brown, George W. The Story of Canada. Toronto: Copp Clark, 1950: 165.

Chafe and Lower, Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be, 208.

Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be, 362. See also Garland. Canada: Then and Now, 312 and 319.

Brown, George. Building the Canadian Nation. Toronto: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1946: 413; id. W., Building the Canadian Nation. Revised ed. Toronto: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1958: 7; Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be, 223.

Brown. Building the Canadian Nation, 59.

Brown. Building the Canadian Nation, 448; Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be, 362. See also Garland, Aileen. Canada: Then and Now. Toronto: Macmillan Company of Canada, 1954: 312 and 319.

Brown. Building the Canadian Nation, 448.

Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be, 27 and 29.

Ibid., 39.

Brown. Building the Canadian Nation, 297. See also Brown. Building the Canadian Nation, 46 and 297; Brown. The Story of Canada, 22, 57, and 127; Dickie, Donalda. The Great Adventure. Toronto–Vancouver: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1950: 21, 54, and 115; Garland. Canada: Then and Now, 120, 124.

Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be, 331. See also Brown. Building the Canadian Nation, 173; Dorland, Arthur C. Our Canada. Toronto: Copp Clark, 1949, 8.

Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be, 60–64, 160; Dorland. Our Canada, 318. See also Garland. Canada: Then and Now, 1.

Brown. Building the Canadian Nation, 448; Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be. See also Dickie. The Great Adventure, 15, 107; Garland. Canada: Then and Now, 15, 319.

Brown. Building the Canadian Nation, 295. See also Brown. The Story of Canada, 146.

Dorland. Our Canada, 128.

Brown. Building the Canadian Nation, 145; Garland. Canada: Then and Now, 101 and 334.

Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be, 53. See also Garland. Canada: Then and Now, 62–65 and 127; Wallace, Stewart. A First Book of Canadian History. Toronto: Macmillan, 1928: 81 and 88. Although the textbook by Wallace was published much earlier, it was reprinted at least 18 times and authorized for use in Ontario until 1945.

Wallace. A First Book of Canadian History, 341. See also Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be, 399.

Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be, 396.

Dorland. Our Canada, 335.

Ibid., 336.

Brown. Building the Canadian Nation, 422.

Brown. Building the Canadian Nation, 31.

For some examples see ibid., 41, 435–449; Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be, 139, 395–399; Dickie. The Great Adventure, 369; Garland. Canada: Then and Now, 150, 71–74, 340–342.

Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be, 242.

Brown. Building the Canadian Nation, 472.

Ibid; Brown. Building the Canadian Nation, 422, 445; Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be, 261, 296.

Brown. Building the Canadian Nation, 447.

Brown. Building the Canadian Nation, 472; Brown. Building the Canadian Nation, 422; Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be, 17.

Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be, 319. See also Brown. Building the Canadian Nation, 447; Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be, 261.

Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be, 475.

Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be.

Ibid., 493. Emphasis in the original.

Ibid., 279. See also, Chafe and Lower. Canada – a Nation and How It Came to Be, 296.

Brown. Building the Canadian Nation, 472.

Thank you to one anonymous reviewer for this important point.

Brown. George W. Building the Canadian Nation. Toronto: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1942: 456. See also, Dickie. The Great Adventure, 411 and Garland. Canada: Then and Now, 388–390.

I discuss in more detail such redemptive nationalist representations in Montgomery, K. E. “Imagining the Antiracist State: Representations of Racism in Canadian History Textbooks.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education (forthcoming).

Cruxton, J. Bradley and W. Douglas Wilson, Spotlight Canada. Fourth ed. Toronto: Oxford, 2000, 216. Emphasis in the original.

Newman, Garfield. Canada: A Nation Unfolding, Ontario Edition. Toronto: McGraw‐Hill Ryerson, 2000: 208. See also, Fielding, John and Rosemary Evans. Canada: Our Century, Our Story. Scarborough, Ontario: Nelson Thomas Learning, 2000: 158.

Frederickson. Racism: A Short History, 56–58; Gould. The Mismeasure of Man, 390–412.

Newman. Canada: A Nation Unfolding, Ontario Edition, 208.

Bolotta, Angelo et al. Canada: Face of a Nation. Toronto: Gage Educational Publishing Company, 2000: 133–134. Emphasis in the original. See also, Fielding and Evans. Canada: Our Century, Our Story.

Bolotta et al. Canada: Face of a Nation, 421.

Fielding and Evans. Canada: Our Century, Our Story, 464.

Willinsky. Learning to Divide the World: Education at Empire’s End.

Billig. Banal Nationalism, 71.

Hundey, Ian, M. L. Magarrey and Norma Pettit. Canadian History: 1900–2000. Toronto: Irwin Publishing, 2000, 28.

Bain et al. Making History – the Story of Canada in the Twentieth Century, 1; Bolotta et al. Canada: Face of a Nation.

Bolotta et al. Canada: Face of a Nation, x. See also, Newman. Canada: A Nation Unfolding, Ontario Edition, 8.

Hundey, Magarrey and Pettit. Canadian History: 1900–2000, 313.

Magarrey, Hundey and Pettit. Canadian History: 1900–2000, 20. Emphasis in the original. See also, Bogle, Don, Eugene D’Orazio and Don Quinlan. Canada: Continuity and Change. Markham, Ontario: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2000: 17; Bolotta et al. Canada: Face of a Nation, 1; Fielding and Evans. Canada: Our Century, Our Story, 4–9.

Fielding and Evans. Canada: Our Century, Our Story, 9.

Bolotta et al. Canada: Face of a Nation; Hundey, Magarrey and Pettit. Canadian History: 1900–2000, 28.

Hundey, Magarrey and Pettit. Canadian History: 1900–2000, 28.

Bain et al. Making History – the Story of Canada in the Twentieth Century, 17; Cruxton and Wilson. Spotlight Canada, 23.

Hundey, Magarrey and Pettit. Canadian History: 1900–2000, 43. Bain et al. Making History – the Story of Canada in the Twentieth Century, 67; Bolotta et al. Canada: Face of a Nation, 38–51; Hundey, Magarrey and Pettit. Canadian History: 1900–2000, 70.

For example, Fielding and Evans. Canada: Our Century, Our Story, 10.

Newman. Canada: A Nation Unfolding, Ontario Edition, 252. See also Fielding and Evans. Canada: Our Century, Our Story, 189 and Hundey, Magarrey and Pettit. Canadian History: 1900–2000, 237.

Bain et al. Making History – the Story of Canada in the Twentieth Century, 201–203; Bogle, D’Orazio and Quinlan. Canada: Continuity and Change, 218–221; Bolotta et al. Canada: Face of a Nation, 170–174; Cruxton and Wilson. Spotlight Canada, 268–272; Fielding and Evans. Canada: Our Century, Our Story, 188–189; Hundey, Magarrey and Pettit. Canadian History: 1900–2000, 237–240; Newman. Canada: A Nation Unfolding, Ontario Edition, 252–255.

Bolotta et al. Canada: Face of a Nation, 121. Emphasis added.

Newman, Garfield. Canada: A Nation Unfolding. Toronto: McGraw‐Hill Ryerson, 2000: 8.

Hundey, Magarrey and Pettit. Canadian History: 1900–2000, 450.

Bogle, D’Orazio and Quinlan. Canada: Continuity and Change, 342. See also, Bain et al. Making History – the Story of Canada in the Twentieth Century; Bogle, D’Orazio and Quinlan. Canada: Continuity and Change, 530; Bolotta et al. Canada: Face of a Nation; Cruxton and Wilson. Spotlight Canada; Fielding and Evans. Canada: Our Century, Our Story; Newman. Canada: A Nation Unfolding, Ontario Edition, 414.

Hundey, Magarrey and Pettit. Canadian History: 1900–2000, 446.

Cf., Billig. Banal Nationalism, 63.

Bain et al. Making History – the Story of Canada in the Twentieth Century, 427.

Fielding and Evans. Canada: Our Century, Our Story, 465.

Ibid., 272. Emphasis in the original.

Fielding and Evans. Canada: Our Century, Our Story, 277. See also, Hundey, Magarrey and Pettit. Canadian History: 1900–2000, 294.

Barker, Martin. “Biology and the New Racism.” In Racism, edited by Leonard Harris. Ahmerst–New York: Humanity Books, 1999.

Gilroy. Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line.

cf. Arendt. The Origins of Totalitarianism, 363.

Alexander, M. Jacqui, and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, eds. Feminist Geneologies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures. New York: Routledge, 1997: xvii; Bonnett, Alistair. Anti‐Racism. London: Routledge, 2000: 145; Dei, G. J. S. “The Denial of Difference: Reframing Anti‐Racist Praxis.” Race ethnicity and education 2, no. 1 (1999); Stoler. Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things, 199; Westwood, S. “Racism, Mental Illness and the Politics of Identity.” In Racism, Modernity and Identity on the Western Front, edited by Ali Rattansi and Sallie Westwood. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994: 247.

Guimaraes, A. S. A. “Racism and Anti‐Racism in Brazil: A Postmodern Perspective.” In Racism, edited by L. Harris. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 1999: 328.

Cf. Cohen, Phil. “‘It’s Racism What Dunnit’: Hidden Narratives in Theories of Racism.” In ‘Race’, Culture and Difference, edited by James Donald and Ali Rattansi. London: Sage Publications, 1992.

Goldberg. The Racial State, 200–238.

Ibid., 236.

Mills, Charles W. “Revisionist Ontologies: Theorizing White Supremacy.” In Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race. London: Cornell University Press, 1998.

Goldberg. The Racial State, 104.

Francis, D. National Dreams: Myth, Memory, and Canadian History. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 1997, 13–14.