Faith-based School Choice in Alberta: The Advent of a Pluriform Public Model? By John L. Hiemstra and Robert A. Brink Contact information: Dr. John L. Hiemstra Professor of Political Science, The King’s University College, Edmonton, AB
[email protected] Robert A. Brink Graduate Student, Political Theory Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto, ON Draft Please do not copy or distribute this text without the authors’ permission. Introduction While several Canadian provinces are currently in a state of upheaval over the place of faith in the provincial school system, Alberta is pragmatically establishing a new model for relating faith to schooling. Both the nature of Alberta’s over-all school system, as well as the various roles that religions and other philosophies can play in schools, have changed dramatically during the past four decades. In the past, scholars have classified Alberta’s school system as non-sectarian public schooling with minority denominational districts. Today, the data suggest that we are seeing the advent of a pragmatic pluriform public school system. This study: This paper has two aims: First, to present the wide diversity of types of school authority and schools that currently function within Alberta’s overall school system. The paper examines the wide range of types of faith-based schooling offered within each type of school authority and schools. Secondly, based on these empirical findings, to show that Alberta’s school system should be given a new classification. In this study, we examine the types of authorities that are legally permitted to run schools1 in Alberta. This study uses the 2001-2002 school year data from Alberta Learning, unless otherwise noted.2 The government officially presents its data using, in part, four public authorities: public, separate, charter and francophone authorities.