Course Outline - Printable Version
Course description:
Themes: This course presents the transformations of family life in Canada since 1600, its varieties, its continuities, its relationship with political and economic institutions, and the changing status of its members. The construction of ideas about families will be discussed and the links between images and practices. (Field c) After a historiographical introduction, the course will proceed chronologically.
Teaching approaches: Lectures, work in class with secondary and primary documents, a long essay, and a general discussion on students’ findings during their research for this essay will all help them understand the periods and themes selected for this course.
Methods: It will enhance students’ abilities to read historians critically, find relevant primary and secondary sources, interpret documents, construct solid arguments, uncover assumptions, discuss conflicting analysis and think autonomously about the material they have read. A series of workshops will be devoted exclusively to the acquisition of such skills.
Historiography: The course will introduce students to the main theories (such as functionalism, Marxism, feminism, liberalism, postmodernism) used by historians of the family, their concepts (family strategies, life cycle, interdependency, kinship, household, intimacy, domesticity, authority, reproduction, generations, private and public spheres) and methods (such as historical demography, oral history, analysis of photographs, micro history). It will also present the main debates between historians.
