Patterns of 20th century attendance : a systematic study of Victoria public schools, 1910 and 1921
Date
1985
Authors
Hawthorne, Dan Robert
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Abstract
In the first three decades of the twentieth century, a loose coalition of educators and child reformers reached a 'new consensus' regarding - how Canadian children were raised. Because public education systems touched almost all children, schools were targeted as instruments to effect this new consensus. In this period Canadian public education was extended to more students, in particular teenagers, as high school became a more common experience. Schools were also transformed, with the introduction of new curriculum and more efficient methods of organization and teaching. Educators and child reformers banded together to establish more standardized, efficient, child-centred systems of education.
This period has received scant attention compared to the nineteenth century and as a result there are many aspects of twentieth century schooling that we know little about. Notably absent are attendance studies. We know relatively little regarding questions of who went to school and for how long, and how these patterns changed in response to changes in school organization and curriculum. This gap in the historiography can be best addressed though systematic micro histories of particular locales, utilizing school registers. Through quantitative analyses of such records, patterns of organization, enrollment, and attendance can be established for this crucial period. Hitherto this method has only been applied to the nineteenth century -and the personal schedule of the census.
This thesis is a study of Victoria, British Columbia, in 1910 and 1921. School registers for over three thousand elementary and secondary students were analyzed to explore questions regarding the organization of urban schools and patterns of enrollment and attendance. The Victoria registers also facilitated an analysis of student mobility: both intra-city and extra-city movement.
The study illuminates the characteristics of one modern school system and suggests that as late as 1921, Canadian public education retained qualities of irregularity, both in organization and · attendance, not unlike the nineteenth century. Not all children went to school regularly and some of the relationships between age, gender, school type and course, and attendance are exposed. Beyond this, many questions are raised regarding these and other relationships. The impact of vocational education, geographic mobility, and social class are speculated upon. Not definitive, this study rather suggests both a series of questions and a possible method to answer them.