Private Schooling in English Canada

• Main Author: Podmore, Christopher Jophn
• Other Authors: Synge, J., Sociology
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 1976
• Subjects: private schools; English Canada; macrosociological approach; comparative; Newfoundland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/5354

This study deals with the private schools of English Canada with a special emphasis on Upper Canada and later Ontario. Its approach is macrosociological: it covers three hundred years of schooling in Canada and compares private schools in Canada with school systems in one hundred and fifty-three societies. Various sociological models are used during the course of the study and at the conclusion the private schooling principle is connected to general sociological theory. Chapter One discusses the relationship between mass schooling and modernizaticn. Drawing on the ideas of Durkheim and Weber a developmental model of the rise of state schooling is presented. It is suggested that in modern societies private schools result from the strains of social differentiation; this yields two kinds of private schools: schools of privilege and schools of protest. Chapter Two includes an international survey of private schools; this helps to place the private schools of Canada in a comparative perspective. The survey revealed that communist and communist-inc.lined societies have abolished private schools. In non--communist societies the amount of private schooling is variable and shows no clear relationship to the degree of industrialization. From the comparative data a typology of scliool systems is developed. Further analysis shows that private schooling in English Canada is relatively small; only Norway and Sweden among modern industrial non-communist societies have smaller private school enrolments. Chapter Three covers the first four stages of the developmental model in an account of the rise of state schooling in the ten school systems of Canada. In a more detailed treatment of Upper Canada (later Ontario) it was possible to explore a conflict model of educational change presented by Scotford-Archer and Vaughan (1968). The conflict model was found to be inappropridte for the Canadian experience. The account of schooling in Newfoundland also indicated that the developmental model also required further modifications. ...