L'apprentissage des Autres : la construction rhétorique et les usages pédagogiques de l'altérité à l'école québécoise (1830-1915)

Cannibals, caravans under the burning desert sun, “Wild Indians” of the Northwest… these were just some of the exotic images that Quebec schoolchildren were presented with in the 19th century.  In addition to being a vehicle for socialization into the nation, the school was also a window onto the wider world and a place to learn about stereotypes. What images of the Other, and produced by which ideologies, did Quebec schools transmit?  How did Quebec youth become conscious of “otherness”?  What recreative and pedagogical functions did these images serve?  This thesis is an effort to answer these questions. The first three chapters of the thesis explore the rhetorical construction of otherness in the school.  How was the Other identified and depicted?  The rhetoric of otherness took many forms, from cultural distancing to racial essentializing.  European imperialism and the knowledge it produced facilitated the classification of the world’s peoples, from which were drawn those peoples who had different and “bizarre” cultural practices.  Consistent with the history of Orientalism, such fascination was particularly reserved for the peoples of Asia.  But, as radical as the otherness of the Oriental could be, it did not attain the level of essentialization imposed on the “Negro,” defined by their race, and to the “Savage,” whose body was the primary indicator of their identity.  Finally, the significant role that the figure of the Indian played in primary-level education is a reminder that it was key to realizing the very possibility of a national existence for Canadians – who were themselves essentialized as belonging to the civilized world.  Far from having only been in the background of history, the Indian was at the heart of the narrative as the figure most likely to capture the interest of children. Retaining the interest of children was precisely what the pedagogy of the era was most concerned with as a means to develop various capacities, such as the power of observation and emotion, both of which the latter chapters of this thesis examines.  Fascinated by the images they observed, children were exposed to a stereotyped representation of the Other that manifested itself across multiple disciplines. In employing the travel narratives of the European explorers, geography called upon students to imagine themselves elsewhere.  The schoolwork of students explored here reveals their curiosity about and imaginings of far-off regions and peoples.  Finally, we also see how a missionary rhetoric manipulated the emotional reactions of schoolchildren to poor non-Christian children and thereby used the school to transmit its message. The school setting ensured that children acquired a sense of authority over the Others that the educational discourse presented to them.  The knowledge of the Others gave them a sense of superiority and authority.  The school also transmitted a hierarchical vision of the world in which Canadian children, even those of the popular classes, belonged to the more privileged categories, that is to say to the white race and civilization.  This highlights one of the central findings of this research: children were not defined as French-Canadians or English-Canadians vis-à-vis the Other; rather, they were defined as white and civilized.  This thesis also shows how otherness was a pedagogical tool that public education privileged amid its expansion in the 19th century.

Keyphrases: race, autochtones, missions, otherness, children, Indigenous, civilization, Orientalism, iconography, missionary work