SOCIAL STUDIES EDUCATION AT THE ELEMENTARY LEVEL IN QUÉBEC SINCE THE PUBLICATION OF THE RAPPORT PARENT IN 1964: Foundations, Perspectives and Conceptual Framework

Résumé

This paper, presents a critical analysis of the scientific professional documentation regarding the teaching of social and human sciences at the elementary level in Québec, published after the release of the Rapport de la commission royale d’enquête sur l’enseignement dans la province de Québec, in 1964, better known under the name of Rapport Parent. The purpose of this article is to highlight a number of tensions and ruptures from foundation, the perspectives and the conceptual framework that characterizes the field of social studies education at the elementary level in Québec during a fifty-year period. We refer to the existence of tension between the purposes of emancipation and socialisation; tension between subjects who know how to adapt themselves and have the capacity to think; tension between a constructed knowledge and reified knowledge; and, tension between natural approaches and scientific approaches. The tensions identified in the literature illustrate the wide range of concepts and points of view that are directly linked to the underlying foundation of the thought process of those who collectively implement the teaching of social studies into the education system, sometimes influenced by the so-called personalist theories, other times by technologic theories, and even by constructivist theories (Bertrand, 1993).