St Hilaire, Aimee (2025) Critical Analysis of the Quebec Policy on Education. Masters thesis, Concordia University.
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Abstract
This critical policy analysis seeks to identify the underlying ideologies, as well as the government’s motivations and intentions, by examining the Policy on Educational Success (PES) (Gouvernement du Québec, 2017). The PES was developed to provide a framework for educational reforms from 2017 to 2030 in Quebec. This analysis considers the influence of globalization and the unique socio-political context of Quebec while utilizing Fairclough’s (2007) and Bacchi’s (2016) critical discourse analysis. The results indicate the PES mirrors many structural reform recommendations found in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) education policy. This analysis finds that these reforms are integrated within the Quebec education system with two intentions. The first is to cultivate human capital to support and sustain economic development. The second and most prominent intention of the PES is to inculcate the population with a national identity, dominated by Quebec values of secularism and the French language. The conclusion of this thesis is a warning that the reform recommendations of the OECD, in the movement toward globalization, are creating systems of centralized authority, which are vulnerable to being co-opted by government powers and used for the indoctrination of the population. This analysis contributes to the body of research on education policy, specifically, on Quebec education policy, providing a much-needed critical perspective.
| Divisions: | Concordia University > Faculty of Arts and Science > Education |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
| Authors: | St Hilaire, Aimee |
| Institution: | Concordia University |
| Degree Name: | M.A. |
| Program: | Educational Studies |
| Date: | 10 March 2025 |
| Thesis Supervisor(s): | Cambre, Carolina |
| Keywords: | Quebec Education Policy, critical discourse analysis |
| ID Code: | 995362 |
| Deposited By: | AIMEE ST-HILAIRE |
| Deposited On: | 17 Jun 2025 17:04 |
| Last Modified: | 17 Jun 2025 17:04 |
| Additional Information: | n/a |
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