Abstract
Cooperation was the animating feature of the United Famers and Farm Women of Alberta (UFA/UFWA) and was reflected in their reform initiatives during their tenure in the Alberta Legislature between 1921 and 1935. It was the United Farmers and Farm Women of Alberta who instigated the reform of grade school curriculum leading to the shift from history to social studies beginning in 1935. With the advent of social studies in Alberta, gone was a study of the past; social studies worked to establish a democratic and cooperative society in the future.
It is the objective of this thesis to contextualize the shift from history to social studies curriculum by considering the cooperative ethos expounded by the UFA/UFWA in Alberta between 1919 and 1935. At the same time, my objective in this thesis is to expand the understanding of the origins of social studies beyond a widely held view among some historians that it was brought to Alberta from the United States by a select group of educational elites. This narrow perspective ignores the local roots of this momentous curriculum development. The shift from history to social studies took place amidst a rising tide of prairie populism sweeping Alberta during the first three decades of the twentieth century. During these decades, UFWA leaders, rural women school teachers, and their interactions with an emerging educational bureaucracy in Alberta contributed significantly to the emergence of social studies. The onset of social studies involved a wider cast of characters and local movements than has been accounted for to date.
