Canada’s painful history of residential schools that tore Indigenous children away from their families and forced them to endure abuse in church-run boarding schools for decades is one that was not taught about in all classrooms.
A new survey conducted by Research Co. found that just 42 per cent of survey respondents say the topic of residential schools was discussed by their teachers.
The survey was completed by a representative national sample of adults who attended elementary school and/or high school in Canada.
Over 27 per cent say the topic of residential schools was broached in high school while 15 per cent were introduced to it in elementary school.
A whopping 45 per cent say they did not hear about the subject at all in the public school system.
“The findings outline some glaring generational differences when it comes to in-class instruction about residential schools,” said Mario Canseco, President of Research Co.
“While only 26% of respondents aged 18-to-34 say they did not discuss this topic inside the classroom, the proportion jumps to 51% among those aged 35-to-54 and 58% among those aged 55 and over.”
Meanwhile a third of all respondents said that the assessment of residential schools made by their teachers depicted the system in a positive light; 41 per cent remember the assessment as “negative”; and 25 per cent say they are unsure.
When asked about their current personal view of residential schools, 68 per cent say it is “negative” while one-in-five describe it as “positive.”
In B.C., negative perception of residential schools is higher than in other provinces with 88 per cent holding that view.
At the other end of the spectrum, only 57 per cent of respondents from Quebec said they think residential schools are a negative aspect of Canadian history.
These results are based on an online survey conducted between August 7 to August 9, 2020, among 805 adults representative of the population at large.
Research Co. says the data has been statistically weighted according to Canadian census figures for age, gender and region in Canada. The margin of error—which measures sample variability—is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
