Constructing patriotism: How Canada's History Hall has evolved over 50 years

My recent publication in the History Education Research Journal, Volume 15, Number 2, 26 October 2018, pp. 292-307(16):

In this article, I illustrate how the national narrative in Canada's Museum of History has evolved over 50 years. Located in the national capital of Ottawa, the new Canada's History Hall presents a concise overview of a nation, stretching from time immemorial to the present. It was opened on 1 July 2017 as a signature exhibition in celebration of Canada's sesquicentennial. It also represents a fourth manifestation of a national museum narrative for Canada. From humble beginnings in 1967 (when Canada celebrated its centennial), the narrative has changed substantially in response to national policies and societal values. Adopting a critical discourse analysis methodology, and drawing from archival evidence, I analyse how this national narrative has evolved. Canada's History Hall presents Canadian students with a concise national template for remembering Canada's past. Over the past 50 years, this narrative has changed, as curators have employed artefacts and museum environments to construct patriotic pride in their nation. Until 2017, this narrative was blatantly exclusionary of Indigenous voices. More recently, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has called for reconciliation in education, including public forums for education. The Canadian Museum of History has responded to this call by weaving Indigenous voices into the national narrative of the new Canadian History Hall. In so doing, I argue, the museum has successfully entwined patriotism with reconciliation against past wrongs. Read more...

Canada's History Hall Then and Now: Settler Colonialism, National Narratives, & Silent Voices

Student Narratives and Public Memory in Museums

Image credit: Matt Buck, Wikimedia

By Cynthia Wallace-Casey, PhD

University of New Brunswick

(Fredericton)

I would like to draw your attention to a history education symposium coming up on December 1 in London (England) at the Institute of Education. This seminar series brings together three international scholars to explore what young people know about the past and their sources of knowledge.

Dr. Jocelyn Letourneau, of Laval University (Quebec), will discuss a pragmatic approach to teaching history, intended to move students “outside the thinkable they’ve been accustomed to in living in a particular society and being subject to its broad representations.”

Dr. Arie Wilschut, of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, will focus his discussion on the Dutch national historical consciousness, in particular, “we” versus “they” perspectives when talking and writing about the past.

Dr. Stéphane Levesque, of the University of Ottawa, will discuss the function of narration in orientating a community (and the individuals who share a membership in that community) within the context of time and nation.

De-constructing Cabinets of Curiosity: Arts-based Inquiry Project in Historical Thinking

By Cynthia Wallace-Casey

PhD candidate

University of New Brunswick

(Fredericton)

This arts-based inquiry project was intended to complement and extend upon my PhD research, regarding how a heritage community can assist middle school students in deepening their historical consciousness. This activity specifically related to the photovoice component of my research. It was intended to serve two purposes: a) to extend and disseminate my research to a broader public audience, by facilitating the development of a gallery-style photo exhibition that illustrates students’ abilities (through their eyes and in their words) of engaging in historical inquiry within a local history museum; and b) to reveal the nature of their ability to think historically in a museum
setting.

Read my full report here...

Mapping the Historical Consciousness of 7th Graders.

by Cynthia Wallace-Casey,
PhD Candidate
University of New Brunswick
(Fredericton)

At the risk of self-promotion, I would like to draw your attention to a research note that has just been published in the Journal of New Brunswick Studies. As a graduate student who has devoted the past 5 years to exploring the phenomenon of historical consciousness, I am (needless-to-say) thrilled and honoured to see a small piece of my research published in a scholarly journal.

All this aside, the findings also warrant further discussion, since they provide an intriguing glimpse into an age group less commonly discussed in conversations around historical consciousness and historical thinking in Canada. The data was collected as part of a pre-survey that expanded upon the Canadians and their Pasts (2013) investigation with an entire class of Anglophone 7^th graders.  In working with this group of students, I had the privilege of learning a little bit more about their relationship with the past, and the narratives that they carry. Over a period of 15 weeks, we worked together to explore a material history framework for historical thinking in museums, which served as a cultural tool for deepening students’ historical consciousness.

As Stéphane Levesque (2014) has pointed out, “the study of historical consciousness makes it possible to understand how people use the past.” For the students participating in this inquiry, it was evident that they initially used the past to situate themselves within a Canada narrative of privilege and war. These “broad pictures” for remembering represented common themes that (just as Levesque has indicated) served as “backdrops” for acquiring new knowledge. For these students, their themes of privilege and war were predominantly optimistic.

In somewhat contradiction to this optimism, however, many of the students paralleled this schema with more pessimistic perceptions about change over time. In this regard the students were very unlike adult samplings in the larger Canadians and Their Pasts study. Hence, rather than perceiving things as getting better over time, nearly half (42%) of the students recognised progression as a contradiction. For these students, while technology had made life easier, the resulting pollution and conflict had also made life worse. In this sense, students’ narratives of privilege seemed to be somewhat at odds with their beliefs in change over time.