Conference Agenda

During the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century, the primary schools for the masses were accompanied by elite schools catering to children from the upper classes. These schools, including the German Gymnasien, the French lycées, the Italian Liceo Classico, the British public schools and the Swedish läroverk, had little institutional connection to mass schooling. They provided education for male pupils, often from the age of ten or twelve and ending at 17 or 19 for those who completed the program. The origin of these schools was the early modern state and the church's need for trained staff, which still left a clear mark on these schools in the nineteenth century. Using government reports and their presentations of the Swedish grammar schools (läroverk), this paper discusses the proper Anglo-Saxon terms to use when presenting them. I will examine the applicability of terms such as grammar schools, gymnasiums, secondary schools and elite schools to denote the schools that prepared a small section of the population for university studies. Here, I will first argue that terms such a public schools and high schools are problematic in several European cases. Secondly, I will explore the benefits and drawbacks of terms such as secondary, elite, gymnasium and grammar schools, and discuss how these should be taken into account when applied to historical realities in the turn of the century Europe.

Recently, renewed attention has been given journalistically to the question of international language education in elementary and secondary schools in Ontario (Bascaramurty and Alphonso 2023; Dixon 2015; Zhang 2016; Kunnas 2024). When we think of language education in Canada, the official languages often come to mind; French and English (Hayday 2005; Hayday 2015b). The landscape has changed both in Canada and internationally, however. This has been in some ways for the better, but also in ways that present new challenges(Bruter, Frijhoff, and Savoie 2004; Smaller 2004). Questions remain. Indigenous languages are now returning and have rightly become part of the curriculum, having been suppressed through Residential Schools and the genocide of Indigenous peoples in the past 150 years (Griffith 2019; Coronel-Molina and McCarty 2016). Moreover, there has been an evolution in secondary school curricula away from the classical languages, to “modern languages,” to “heritage language education” to more recently “international languages”(Aravossitas 2010; Shin 2010; Sachar 2017). Still more needs to be done. This paper will look at the German language in this regard, and it argues that its historical decline in recent decades is not necessarily an indication of its future(Prokop 2005; Plews and Schmenk 2013). A brighter future will also be possible if diversity and choice are embedded in the international language curriculum ((Criser and Malakaj 2020; Merritt 2020). The politics of language education in the Province of Ontario remains an interwoven and complex tale. It is also one driven by political choices. This paper then will explore some of the following research questions in this regard. They will be examined specifically with relation to secondary education.

1. What is the history of the German language in Kitchener and in Ontario?
2. After World War II, what was the relationship between local German organizations and local school authorities? Did this help increase German language studies?
3. What were the events that hindered, and subsequently, the curriculum that sidetracked international languages such as German?
4. What implications did this have in terms of the availability of international language education and decoloniality in the late twentieth century secondary schools?
5. What effects did this have for immigration in large metropolitan centres in Canada?
6. In recent times, why is there renewed hope for international languages in Ontario? Do ties to international cultural organizations help (i.e. the Goethe Institut, the Alliance Française, etc.)?
7. Conclusions. What are the implications going forward in terms of secondary international language education in Canada? And what can be done to shape a better future?

The paper will present a case-study of Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. Archival materials from local school boards, the Archives of Ontario, and Library and Archives Canada will be critically analyzed for this project. The K-W region is interesting as it was historically settled by Germans in the nineteenth century, and recently by new immigrant groups (Bryce 2022; Wagner 2006). The paper will look at some possible directions for future policy in this area in conclusion. International language education and multilingualism remains critical for mutual understanding and engagement in the world today.

This work attempts to put different scales of analysis in dialogue, resuming the journey that arose from a research project that sought to highlight the influence of developmental ideas in the reform of the secondary education curriculum in 1963. The influence of International Organizations could be demonstrated from the use of the bibliography that accompanied the Reform document, which made it possible to identify not only extensive quotes on topics such as evaluation, but, above all, from the new meaning that was given. to this educational cycle. However, there is a distance that needs to be explained between how these discourses operate from educational policy documents and how actors use these discourses. In this work, we are going to analyze how the change that occurs with the expansion of enrollment is questioning the decisions of the directors of an educational center located in the interior of the country, which became the scene of a bitter confrontation between local forces. and how these local actors articulate the speeches of International Organizations such as UNESCO and the OAS, the official documents of the Reform and the Doctrine of the Educational Reform that began to be developed in the areas of the Teachers' Assemblies. An attempt is made to show how the decisions of the directors seek to find answers to the new reality of massification, at the same time that they attempt to redefine the meaning of secondary education in a context of strong political polarization. For this presentation, we use the personal archive of Director Salvador Fernández Correa, the personal archive of Inspector Arturo Rodríguez Zorrilla, and the Archive of the Teachers' Assemblies, among others.

Este trabajo intenta poner en diálogo diferentes escalas de análisis, retomando el recorrido que surgió a partir de un proyecto de investigación en el cual se buscaba poner en evidencia la influencia de las ideas desarrollistas en la reforma del plan de estudios de enseñanza secundaria de 1963. La influencia de los Organismos Internacionales se pudo demostrar a partir del uso de la bibliografía que acompañó el documento de la Reforma, que permitió identificar no solo citas extensas sobre temas como evaluación, sino que, sobre todo, a partir del nuevo sentido que se otorgaba a este ciclo educativo. Sin embargo, existe una distancia que es necesario explicar entre el modo en que estos discursos operan desde los documentos de política educativa y el modo en que los actores hacen uso de estos discursos. En este trabajo vamos a analizar como el cambio que se produce con la expansión de la matrícula va interpelando las decisiones de los directores de un centro educativo ubicado en el interior del país, el cual se transformó en el escenario de un enconado enfrentamiento entre fuerzas locales y como estos actores locales articulan los discursos de los Organismos Internacionales como UNESCO y la OEA, los documentos oficiales de la Reforma y las Doctrina de la Reforma Educativa que comenzaba a desarrollarse en los ámbitos de las Asambleas de Profesores. Se intenta mostrar como las decisiones de los directores buscan encontrar respuestas a la nueva realidad de la masificación, al mismo tiempo que pretenden redefinir el sentido de la enseñanza secundaria en un contexto de fuerte polarización política. Para este ponencia se recurre al Archivo personal del Director Salvador Fernández Correa, el Archivo personal del Inspector Arturo Rodríguez Zorrilla, Archivo de las Asambleas de Profesores entre otros.