The Making of the 'Problem Child': Egerton Ryerson and the Liberal Project of Ontario Public Education

摘要

What makes a problem child? In this thesis, I search for the conditions of possibility for the 'problem child', or a student who is constructed as someone who does not belong to the classroom. I focus on the works of Egerton Ryerson, Chief Superintendent at the genesis of Ontario public schooling, who proposed supposedly universal 'common' schools as well as residential schools, segregated schooling by race, and institutionalized schooling for disabled students and lower-class students. Rather than creating contradictions, Ryerson's plans for common schools and separate schools are manifestations of his liberal philosophy, which supported a vision of public schooling that would produce a future civilized state. This conceptualization relies on the production of categories of uncivilized difference, which education can then manage and control. The figure of the 'problem child' shows that the very philosophy that promises universal education is dependent on the exclusion of many from that promise.