Unsettled Histories: Transgressing History Education Practice in New Brunswick, Canada

Abstract

In this paper, we examine national trends in Canadian history education with regard to decolonising history education and how those trends have been manifested in the context of the province of New Brunswick’s Anglophone education system. We begin with outlining three key characteristics of Canadian history education: it has been assimilationist and destructive for the languages, cultures, and collective memories of Indigenous Peoples; it has turned in recent years to an emphasis on teaching historical thinking; and there is an ongoing scholarly and professional debate in Canada about the best way to include attention to Indigenous Peoples and their history in Canadian schools. We show how these trends have been and are present in New Brunswick and argue that unsettling traditional approaches to history education involves rethinking approaches to historical content and processes as well as taking seriously the capacity of young people to engage deeply with the past.