Social Science Marriage & Family
Normalizing the Ideal
Psychology, Schooling, and the Family in Postwar Canada
- Publisher
- University of Toronto Press
- Initial publish date
- Nov 1999
- Category
- Marriage & Family, General, General
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780802082596
- Publish Date
- Nov 1999
- List Price
- $41.95
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9780802044792
- Publish Date
- Nov 1999
- List Price
- $84.00
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781442677760
- Publish Date
- Oct 1999
- List Price
- $84.00
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Description
Homemaker mom, breadwinning dad who played hockey with his son on the weekends, one brother or sister, this was normal Canadian life in the fifties, right? Well, not quite, but author Mona Gleason argues that Canadian psychologists were in part responsible for this fiction of normalcy.
Postwar insecurity about the stability of family life became a platform on which to elevate the role of psychologists in society. Moving outside the universities with radio shows and child-rearing manuals, these figures of authority changed the tenor of parental and familial concern from physical to mental health. Influential psychologists like Samuel Laycock and William Blatz spread their own vision of life as the healthy goal for which society should strive. Their ideal of 'normal' reflected and helped entrench the dominant white, Anglo-Celtic, patriarchal vision of life. Those who did not fit the model due to skin colour, class, or ethnicity were marginalized or silenced, and, as Gleason's innovative feminist approach emphasizes, whether male or female, simply trying to fit within the prescribed gender roles inevitably led to alienation.
This history of psychology and its effects asks new and necessary questions about the role of the social sciences in shaping the private experiences of ordinary Canadians.
About the author
Mona Gleason, PhD, is an associate professor and the co-ordinator of the Society, Culture, and Politics in Education Program in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia. Her research brings an historical perspective to the study of education, children, and youth in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Other titles by
Bringing Children and Youth into Canadian History
The Difference Kids Make
Small Matters
Canadian Children in Sickness and Health, 1900-1940
Rethinking Canada
The Promise of Women's History
Lost Kids
Vulnerable Children and Youth in Twentieth-Century Canada and the United States
Children, Teachers and Schools in the History of British Columbia
In the History of British Columbia