« Bienvenue Au Québec! » The Integration of Newly Arrived Immigrant Students in Quebec Classes d’Accueil

This qualitative study focuses on the need for teachers to foster inclusive learning environments in Quebec’s “Classes d’Accueil”- literally ‘welcome classes’- for new immigrants to Canada who arrive in Quebec without a functional knowledge of the French language. Transitioning into a new culture comes with many social, personal and academic hardships and it is the responsibility of teachers to foster safe, welcoming and socially just milieus. Since the official language of instruction in Quebec is French, the classe d’accueil provides a unique setting for exploring two principal issues: how teachers look upon the linguistic and cultural diversity of their learners, and how teachers negotiate their way between potentially opposing tensions-- to integrate newly arrived children into Quebec, and, to reinforce Quebec’s distinct cultural and linguistic status. By drawing on New Literacy Studies (Gee, 1988; Street, 2003) and second language education perspectives, and through the incorporation of data from in-depth teacher interviews, classroom observation and analysis of classroom materials, this study argues that 1) teachers foster inclusive or exclusive learning environments in their classrooms contingent upon their personal and political ties to the French language and the Quebec culture and 2) that these attachments to Quebec’s Franco-national identity directly influence the manner in which they structure the learning environment in their classrooms. Evidence from this study further suggests that education in Quebec is not always inclusive, particularly for students enrolled in classes d’accueil

What’s Language Got to do with it? An Exploration into the Learning Environment of Quebec’s Classes d’Accueil

This article stems from an on-going qualitative study of the ‘environment’ of Montreal’s elementary level welcome classes for new immigrant students (classes d’accueil), including teachers’ language attitudes and actual language practices in the classroom. Since the official language of instruction in Quebec is French, the classe d’accueil provides a unique setting for exploring many issues: how teachers look upon the linguistic and cultural diversity of their learners; how teachers negotiate their way between potentially opposing tensions-- to integrate newly arrived children into Quebec, and, to reinforce Quebec’s distinct cultural and linguistic status. By drawing on socio-cultural theory of language learning, this study explores the manner in which teachers might foster an inclusive learning environment in the classe d’accueil. Cet article est le résultat d’une étude qualitative en cours à l’école primaire qui analyse l’environnement des classes d’accueil pour nouveaux immigrants à Montréal. Elle analyse également les attitudes linguistiques et les pratiques langagières des professeurs dans la salle de classe. Comme la langue officielle de l’éducation au Québec est le français, ces classes d’accueil offrent un environnement unique pour explorer beaucoup de questions : comment les professeurs perçoivent-ils la diversité culturelle et linguistique de leurs apprenants, comment négocient-ils les tensions opposées, c’est-à dire comment font-ils pour intégrer des enfants qui viennent d’arriver au Québec en même temps que renforcer la particularité linguistique et culturelle de la province. Tout en se basant sur la théorie socio culturelle de l’apprentissage des langues, cette étude explore les différentes façons offertes aux professeurs qui encouragent la mise en place d’un environnement d’apprentissage inclusif en classe d’accueil

Students’ Pathways Across Local, National and Supra-National Borders: Representations of a Globalized World in a Francophone Minority School in Ontario, Canada

Informed by anthropology of childhood and youth, this paper examines how elementary students make sense of their diverse trajectories in an expanding culture of spatial, virtual and linguistic mobility (Farmer, 2012). Drawing on data collected in one francophone minority school in Ontario, Canada, we discuss students’ representations of a “globalized world” as they co-construct with peers and teachers the multiple meanings associated with mobility, citizenship and nationhood

Le rapport centre-périphérie et les mobilités structurées : les jeunes Franco-Manitobains et Montréal

Cet article explore les relations ambivalentes de jeunes Franco-Manitobains pris entre deux pôles d’attraction, le domicile et le Montréal cosmopolite. Cette ambivalence émerge des tensions entre deux sources de légitimité francophone : Montréal en tant que métropole et capitale culturelle du Canada français, ainsi que ville internationale et cosmopolite attrayante, et le Manitoba en tant que lieu d’origine authentique et centre de la francophonie de l’Ouest, issu d’une histoire de colonialisme de peuplement. Déménager à Montréal met ces tensions au premier plan : on risque d’être perçu comme traître à la cause du développement de la communauté francophone minoritaire et du français au Manitoba, d’une part, et, d’autre part, on ignore si l’on sera accepté comme un francophone légitime par les Québécois francophones. Visibles dans la recherche d’amarrage chez les jeunes Franco-Manitobains, dans leurs allers-retours entre les deux pôles et leurs va-et-vient dans les réseaux sociaux et linguistiques, ces tensions rejoignent des tensions contemporaines plus larges entre le colonialisme de peuplement, l’ethnonationalisme minoritaire et le cosmopolitisme mondialisé.This paper explores the ambivalent relationships of young Franco-Manitobans caught between two poles of attraction, home and cosmopolitan Montreal. This ambivalence emerges from tensions between two sources of Francophone legitimacy: Montreal as the metropolis and cultural capital of French Canada (as well as an attractive international/cosmopolitan city), and Manitoba as authentic heartland (while also the center of a French-speaking “ouest” constructed around a history of settler colonialism). Relocating to Montreal brings these tensions to the fore: one risks being understood as betraying the cause of supporting minority francophone community development and maintenance of French in Manitoba as well as facing the uncertainty of being accepted as a legitimate francophone by francophone Québécois. Visible in the search for moorings among young Franco-Manitobans, manifested in their back-and-forth mobility between the two centers and their comings-and-goings through social and linguistic networks, these tensions illuminate broader contemporary tensions among settler colonialism, minority ethnonationalism and globalized cosmopolitanism

Students’ Pathways Across Local, National and Supra-National Borders: Representations of a Globalized World in a Francophone Minority School in Ontario, Canada

Informed by anthropology of childhood and youth, this paper examines how elementary students make sense of their diverse trajectories in an expanding culture of spatial, virtual and linguistic mobility (Farmer, 2012). Drawing on data collected in one francophone minority school in Ontario, Canada, we discuss students’ representations of a “globalized world” as they co-construct with peers and teachers the multiple meanings associated with mobility, citizenship and nationhood

Ancrage, mobilité et francité au Manitoba français : histoire d’une lignée

Cet article propose une analyse des récits de vie des membres d’une lignée d’origine française à la Montagne Pembina, au Manitoba, entre la fin du xixe siècle, période où l’ancêtre « canadien », Jean-Baptiste Déroche, immigre dans la région, et le début du xxie siècle. Dans une perspective diachronique, cette étude cherche à saisir les motifs de l’ancrage territorial des membres de la lignée des Deroche et de leur mobilité sociale. Elle considère également la manière dont ceux-ci se racontent dans leur rapport à la langue française et à la France afin de cerner ce qui constitue, en somme, une partie de leur francité. Elle invite ainsi le lecteur ou la lectrice à entamer une réflexion sur les continuités et les ruptures dans l’expérience francophone, particulièrement en ce qui a trait à l’immigration française au Canada et aux relations du Manitoba avec le Québec et avec la France.This article offers an analysis of the life stories told by multiple generations of a French lineage in the Pembina Mountain area of Manitoba between the immigration of Jean-Baptiste Déroche, the family’s first “Canadian” ancestor at the end of the 19th century, and the beginning of the 21st century. Adopting a diachronic perspective, the study’s objective is to understand how the members of the Deroche lineage established roots in the region and how this process was linked to social mobility. It also considers how family members depict their relationship to the French language and to France, thereby expressing the part of their identity that is tied to being French-speakers. Thus the article invites the reader to reflect upon continuities and ruptures in the Francophone experience especially as it relates to French immigration and to Manitoba’s relationship with Quebec and France

Pedagogical and political encounters in linguistically and culturally diverse primary classrooms : examples from Quebec, Canada and Gauteng, South Africa

Comparative research in multilingual urban primary schools indicates that the pedagogical and political goals of schooling may operate at cross-purposes. Classroom observations and teacher interview-discussions were conducted in classes for immigrant children in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where the language of instruction is French, and in classes in Pretoria, Gauteng Province, South Africa, where children from many different language backgrounds are taught in English. Two main themes emerged: (1) Pedagogically, effective teacher-learner communication can break down when teachers are unaware of the roles that language and culture play in second language classrooms. (2) Politically, efforts to assimilate learners into new socio-cultural/political contexts sometimes take precedence over sound pedagogical practice, such as drawing on the linguistic and cultural repertoire that learners bring to the classroom. This on-going qualitative research underlines the importance of preparing pre-service and inservice teachers for the linguistic and cultural diversity they are bound to encounter in their classrooms, and of deepening their understanding of the influence of such diversity on the teaching-learning process.http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccom20gv201