The Transformation of a Pre-Capitalist Educational Formation:
The Development of Education in Nineteenth Century Ontario
 
As you may suppose from its title, the dissertation reflects the halcyon (viewed with nostalgia-tinted lenses) era of the 1970s. Those were the days of the revisionist school of educational historiography founded on the new social history, of the correspondence principle given voice by Bowles and Gintis, of dependency theory, and of the Modernism/Structural Marxism possessing Althusser and Poulantzas as its advocates. In retrospect, I suppose it is precisely when world views appear dominant that they are about to be superceded - to be at their weakest.
 

The problem addressed by the dissertation was the origins of the common (public) school system in Ontario, a concern locating the analysis in the first half of the nineteenth century. Utilizing the theories noted in the previous paragraph, it attempted to account for the appearance of a comparatively modern, capitalist education system. The theoretical anomaly is that this occurred in a pre-capitalist society on the periphery of the then capitalist system.

 

Those wishing to know more should read the abstract. And, in the absence of reading the entire dissertation, one could consult my chapter "Historical School Reform and the Correspondence Principle" in Mike Cole (ed.), Bowles and Gintis Revisited: Correspondence and Contradiction in Educational Theory. This was published in1988 by Falmer Press, located in Lewes, East Sussex, England.
 
Times change and so does the popularity of theoretical paradigms. In spite of the fate of a structurally informed, historically grounded political economy, it did at least possess the virtue of raising significant questions.
 
Times change and so have my research interests. From the historical sociology of education to the detailed analysis of the restructuring of the labour process characterizing tree harvesting production systems on the Miramichi in North Eastern New Brunswick. Those who have an interest in both the sociology of the labour process and tree harvesting (there do not appear to be many), I encourage you to go to the tree harvesting section of my site.