Progressive Rhetoric and Curriculum: Contested Visions of Public Education in Interwar Ontario

Progressive Rhetoric: Contested Visions of Public Education in Interwar Ontario considers the ways that progressivist ideas and rhetoric shaped early curriculum and structural changes to Ontario’s public schools. Through a series of case studies, conceptual analyses, and personal reflections from the field, this volume shows how post-WWI era debates around progressive education were firmly situated within political, economic, social and intellectual evolutions in the province and beyond. By framing contemporary educational rhetoric in light of historical concepts and arguments, Progressive Rhetoric adds to the ongoing historical examination of the meaning of progressive education in the modern age.

Theodore Michael Christou is an Associate Professor of Social Studies and History Education in the Faculty of Education at Queens University, Ontario with a cross-appointment to the Department of History.