DR. DIANE GÉRIN-LAJOIE

University of Toronto

Multicultural Education in French Minority Language Schools in Canada

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My paper reflects on the notion of multicultural education, still largely present in English Canadian educational settings. I conclude that multicultural education, as practiced, is limited to celebrating diverse cultural practices (referring here to the “food and festival” notion), instead of emphasizing principles of social justice. I look specifically at French minority language education, using the case of Ontario to illustrate my reflection. I present a critical examination of the official discourse on inclusion of immigrant students in the French minority language schools in that province. In the past, the Francophone student population in these schools was rather homogeneous. However, assimilation to the English majority language of the province, as well as an increasing number of immigrant students from different racial and ethnic backgrounds (from Africa, Haiti, etc.), have dramatically changed the social fabric of the schools. This new reality brought the government of Ontario, in 2004, to implement exclusively in its French minority language schools, a language planning policy to help sustain the French minority language and minority culture. In addition, a provincial policy on inclusive schools was implemented in 2009 in all majority and minority language schools. In the French minority language educational settings, additional policy guidelines were designed to help school personnel to work with the existing student diversity in keeping with the language planning policy of 2004. My examination of these policies and guidelines demonstrates that the official discourse on inclusion reproduce a folkloric notion of culture, with an emphasis on past values and traditions, keeping the “food and festivals” discourse alive. My analysis is drawn from an ongoing 3-year study on the life trajectories of a group of young immigrants who graduated from French minority language schools in Toronto.

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Diane Gérin-Lajoie, a critical sociologist of education, is Professor Emerita at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto. She is affiliated with the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, and the Centre de recherches en éducation franco-ontarienne (CREFO). She is recognized for her scholarship on official language minorities in Canada in the areas of identity and youth in minority language schools, as well as teacher identity in those schools. Recipient of multiple Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada research funds, Diane Gérin-Lajoie is also member of the Royal Society of Canada.