From a “Disciplined Intelligence” to a “Culture of Care”: Shifting Understandings of Emotions and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century Educational Discourses

Abstract

Attention to children’s emotional development in Canadian schools is often presented as a very recent concern. In fact, competing conceptions of students’ emotional well-being informed educational discourses throughout the twentieth century. This article examines educators’ changing ideals regarding good citizenship, particularly the affective attributes or expressions attached to those ideals, and argues that educational discourse has shifted from an emphasis on creating citizens with a “disciplined intelligence” to promoting a “culture of care.” The first half of the twentieth century witnessed the melding of a nineteenth-century Anglo-Christian moral imperative with a more modern emphasis on the search for personality. While this thrust lingered well into the century, educators increasingly embraced a culture of rights alongside evolving ideas about personality development from the 1950s to the 1980s. In the process, they prioritized self-expression or “self-actualization.” Beginning in the 1980s, educators transformed loose edicts about students’ personal fulfillment into more concrete pursuits of engaged pedagogy, active citizenship, and, increasingly, a “culture of care” within the classroom. In tracing these shifting emphases, this article highlights the need for critical analysis of the affective dimensions of education to better understand both the historic and current role of schools in shaping citizens.