Among countries in the industrialized world, Canada is the only one without a national department of education, national standards for education, and national regulations for elementary or secondary schooling. For many observers, the system seems impractical and almost incoherent. But despite a total lack of federal oversight, the educational policies of all ten provinces are very similar today. Without intervention from Ottawa, the provinces have fashioned what amounts to a de facto pan-Canadian system. Learning to School explains how and why the provinces have achieved this unexpected result. Beginning with the earliest provincial education policies and taking readers right up to contemporary policy debates, the book chronicles how, through learning and cooperation, the provinces gradually established a country-wide system of public schooling. A rich and ambitious work of scholarship, it will appeal to readers seeking fresh insights on Canadian federalism, education policy, and policy diffusion.

Over the past decade, the introspective, insular, and largely atheoretical style that informed Canadian political science for most of the postwar period has given way to a deeper engagement with, and integration into, the global field of comparative politics. This volume is the first sustained attempt to describe, analyze, and assess the "comparative turn" in Canadian political science. Canada's engagement with comparative politics is examined with a focus on three central questions: In what ways, and how successfully, have Canadian scholars contributed to the study of comparative politics? How does study of the Canadian case advance the comparative discipline? Finally, can Canadian practice and policy be reproduced in other countries?

Debating how Canada compares - both regionally and in relation to other countries - is a national pastime. This book examines how political scientists use comparison as a tool to better understand Canadian political life. Using a variety of methods, the contributors explore topics as diverse as Indigenous rights, voting behaviour, and climate policy. While their theoretical perspectives and the kinds of questions they explore vary greatly, as a whole they demonstrate how the "art of comparing" is an important strategy for understanding Canadian identity politics, political mobilization, political institutions, and public policy.