Literacy and Language Education

One of the most important forces shaping the objectives of literacy and language education programs for immigrants was the need on the part of the elites to counter what was perceived as the growing social power of immigrant groups in Canada. Dunn reports that:

One of the earliest and most consistent themes in adult education activity is the push for "socialization" of minority groups into the political and cultural mores of the dominant class. During the years of 1897 to 1914 the Anglo-Saxon commercial and manufacturing elite in Winnipeg felt its political control slipping as the province experienced wave after wave of Slav and Jewish immigration. It was determined to shape the new society in its image....Rather than assuring the assimilation of the newcomers through provision of adequate social amenities and 'integrated residential patterns, the elite chose the route of assimilation through the education system. This was a major emphasis at the elementary and secondary level. One of Winnipeg's most prominent businessmen, James H. Ashdown, was a prime force in having the job done at the immigrant adult level as well....Mayor Ashdown was instrumental in having the Winnipeg school Board establish a system of evening classes in 1907. During that year ten English-language evening classes were opened for foreigners and six more were soon added, twelve of the total being north of the C.P.R. tracks. Evening classes had been requested since 1886, but only the immigrant problem seemed to have sparked any action.74

Here was one of the main themes of a new perspective on illiteracy: "Canadianization", or the inculcation of the values and beliefs of the dominant classes.

With the onset of World War I in 1914, there was intensified concern about immigrant radicalism among elites. Conditions like a 65 per cent increase in food prices between 1914 and 1917 led to growing labour strife. The strikers were joined by immigrant workers, many of whom had been interned as 'dangerous aliens' and then released to mining and railway companies (to meet a labour shortage) which had in turn seriously underpaid and mistreated them. 75 According to Avery, there was:

a growing concern among both Anglo-Canadian businessmen and Dominion security officials about alien labour radicalism... In 1917 there were a record number of strikes and more than one million man days were lost. Immigrant workers were caught up in the general labour unrest and in numerous industrial centres in Northern Ontario and Western Canada they demonstrated a capacity for effective collective action, and a willingness to defy both the power of management and the state.76