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Social Science Marriage & Family

Normalizing the Ideal

Psychology, Schooling, and the Family in Postwar Canada

by (author) Mona Gleason

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.

Mona Gleason's profile page