This thesis examines the role of Christian idioms and practices in the self-fashioning of second generation Haitians of Protestant faith in Montreal. These members of Baptist and Pentecostal Haitian Churches encounter the particular challenges of combining multiple affiliations as they face racism and pressures to assimilate to the mainstream Quebecois society. Taking this context into account, I examine how young Protestants use and subvert religious symbols and practices in constructing their identity, and how they negotiate their position in their world defending themselves against denigrating stereotypes. My research explores how they undertake their personal as well as collective salvation through the work of memory, a self-righteous lifestyle, an intimate relationship with God as well as through the elaboration of their Christian mission.

No description available.

Linguists and psychologists alike have long overlooked the study of creole languages. We know very little about language and reading acquisition in young creole speakers. The aim of the present study was to examine the development of reading-related skills in native speakers of Haitian Creole (HC), a French-based creole, educated in French. In order to isolate the effects of speaking two highly similar languages, we compared Haitian children in 1st and 2nd grade to Spanish-French bilingual children and French monolingual children from European descent. Children from our sample were from five different schools in Montreal and had similar socioeconomic status. Participants were tested individually over three sessions on French standardized and experimental tasks assessing metalinguistic awareness, reading, comprehension, vocabulary and mathematical skills. Bilingual children were also tested on reading and spelling tasks in HC and Spanish. Results showed that HC and Spanish bilinguals performed as well as French native speakers on metalinguistic and reading tasks. However, Spanish-speaking children received lower scores than children in the two other groups on a receptive vocabulary measure. In an experimental task comparing the spelling of words of varying phonological similarity in HC and French, Haitian children had more difficulty spelling words that are cognates in HC and French than homophones or noncognate translations. Findings from this study were interpreted in light of the Bilingual Interactive Activation model (Dijsktra & Van Heuven, 1998).

No description available.