Hypothesis: The period between 1980 and 1989 was one of both social and technological advancement; in the Canadian and New Brunswick context great progress was made in both of these domains. In the context of New Brunswick education, in particular the realm of social studies, a notable shift took place over the course of a decade. At the beginning of the decade there were proposals for a reformed social studies curriculum, one that would move away from the fact and knowledge based history courses in place at the time towards a more global social studies based approach that in many ways resembles the style of social studies course being taught in New Brunswick today. As the decade progressed, this new approach to social studies would encompass different world views and perspectives towards both events of the past as well as current day issues. Further, it would take into account the changing visage of the Canadian and Maritime identity, or rather, identities plural. This new focus would attempt to do so by linking social studies curriculum to students’ own lived experiences and incorporate those of other ethnic groups present in Canada’s past and modern day make-up. While these efforts to include other perspectives on social studies would appear cliché and rather superficial at the beginning of the decade, they would become much more concrete and authentic by the end of the 1980s and would, in turn, set a new standard for multicultural education in the 1990s.
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