Myers, Tamara and Mary Anne Poutanen. “Cadets, Curfews, and Compulsory Schooling: Mobilizing Anglophone Children in WWII Montreal.” Histoire Sociale 38, no.76 (2005): 367-398.

Myers and Poutanen’s article discusses the changes made in Quebec during World War II regarding children and adolescents, specifically the curfew and the beginning of compulsory schooling in Quebec. The article explores the different reasons for these policies, including absent fathers, working mothers and under-qualified teachers in schools during wartime.

The authors refer to a number of primary sources, including articles from the Quebec media during the 1940s, annual reports and minutes from Quebec school districts, and newspaper and institutional records. Furthermore, they refer to sources in both English and French. I believe that the statistics and the first-hand accounts of Quebec in the 1940s provide a convincing argument by the authors.

I found it interesting that this time period is when the “juvenile delinquent” age was raised to under eighteen, rather than under sixteen. The article mentions that putting these sixteen year olds in jail would only “teach them to be a grown-up criminal.” To me, this says something about our prison and reform system. I would be curious to learn more about the “juvenile delinquent” problems throughout the rest of Canada, not only during the 1940s but also the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st century.

Gleason, Mona. “Disciplining Children, Disciplining Parents: The Nature and Meaning of Advice to Canadian Parents, 1945-1955,” in Sara Burke and Patrice Milewski (Eds.), Schooling in Transition: Readings in the Canadian History of Education, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012: 357-375.

Mona Gleason’s article discusses the change in advice to parents that occurred after World War II in Canada. She references a number of advice columns and books and dissects how this advice reflects “the nature of social relations and social change” (p. 360) in Canada during this time period. Throughout the article, she is critical of the patriarchal tone that many of the psychologists used in their advice.

The growing popularity of psychology in the lives of everyday Canadians is interesting, because this interest in psychology is still very much around today. Advice books and columns for parents are still very popular. We also see it in the media, with television shows like Dr. Phil, that suggest that a psychologist is the “go-to” source for parenting advice.  I would be curious to explore why, in the post-WWII era, did psychology become such a trusted science? I found it particularly interesting that psychologists believed that a “strong and controlling” mother could result in homosexuality. Such a strong belief in gender norms explains a lot about gendered curriculum in schools, as well.
Gleason’s article, like “Cadets, Curfews, and Compulsory Schooling: Mobilizing Anglophone Children in WWII Montreal” by Myers and Poutanen, mentions society’s concern with juvenile delinquency. In fact, she even mentions an event that took place in Kamloops that resulted in the banning of any comic book that depicts crime in a “pictorial” manner. It seems that Canada during this time period was so concerned with “bad” children that it resorted to actual laws and policies to try and control children and adolescents. Perhaps many of our laws today, such as compulsory schooling, are in place simply as a measure of keeping teens from getting into too much trouble.
Roy, Patricia E. “The Education of Japanese Children in the British Columbia Interior Housing Settlements during World War Two,” Historical Studies in Education, 4, 2 (1992): 211-231.

In Roy’s article, she examines the schooling provided to Japanese students during World War II. It is quite sad to think about the poor conditions these people lived in, and the lack of care the Canadian government paid to the schooling of these Japanese children during this time. Similar to the other segregated schooling we have read about and discussed in class, it is clear that Japanese students did not benefit from the same benefits provided to white children. In fact, the BCSC actively made sure to keep the Japanese children’s education lower in quality, so as to avoid “jealousy” from white people.

The author of this articles makes a comment about Japanese boys being encouraged to take cooking classes, because it was expected that as adults, they would be able to find employment in that field. This is interesting to me as it relates to my research topic. What specifically made Japanese males more suited to the food industry? What does this say about Canada’s opinion of Japanese men if white Canadian men were not expected to take cooking classes in school? Were Japanese men seen as somehow more feminine than Canadian men? These are all questions I would like to see discussed in class.

The common theme between all three articles this week seems to be the fear of juvenile delinquency in Canada, and the different methods used to “control” this problem. In this article, one method is described that is quite amusing. A child caught cheating in school would be required to pay a 25 cent fine, which they would need to ask for from their parents. The school would then secretly return the fine to the parents. This seems to be an example of the teachers and parents working together to promote good behaviour. I’m curious to discuss in class more examples of schools and parents working together to deal with bad behaviour from children and adolescents.