Canada has two official languages: French and English. Each province must allow
for an educational program in both languages where the number of students warrant such
programs. Although minority language schools exist in all Canadian provinces, some
provinces are so overwhelmingly English that the Francophone school programs struggle
constantly to survive and threaten to become extinct. Yet a vigilant group of parents and
partisans work incessantly to maintain these minority language school programs. This
thesis will examine why these schools exist in British Columbia and whether or not they
can promote the Francophone minority language and culture in the overwhelming
Anglophone environment.
Bilingual Canadian wonder that more Canadians are not bilingual. Some Canadians
are dedicated to educating their children in their official minority language while others
do not understand why Canada is officially bilingual. Yet, to take the example of just one
province, British Columbia is and remains an Anglophone province. A Francophone
parent would, I shall argue, be doing her child a great disservice to insist on schooling in
Francophone minority programs.
Family is only part of a child's world. The media, friends, neighbors, the stores, the
community centers and the people that surround us make up our language and culture. In
British Columbia, the language is English and the cultures are as diverse as the people
who are part of them.
The purpose of this study is to investigate and present an historical, religious,
political and economic analysis of the reasoning behind the existence of Francophone
minority language schools and programs in British Columbia, and to evaluate whether or
not it is possible for these programs and schools to fulfill their mandate.
My initial sentiments were biased in favor of Francophone minority programs and
though I still believe that official minorities have an unquestionable constitutional right to their schools and to the administration of these schools, I no longer believe that these
schools and programs alone can provide a rich ethnic sanctuary that could permit the
minority language and culture to flourish.
In fact, I no longer believe that it is in the student's best interest to attend these
schools and programs. The students can only be crippled by their lack of knowledge of
English and by their limited exposure to the Francophone world.
I visited two of the three homogeneous Francophone schools and four Programme
cadre programs in the mainstream Anglophone and French immersion schools in BC. I
interviewed and videotaped students, parents, teachers, language education experts
and attended conferences and meetings, examined pertinent historical, political, legal and
pedagogical data, and concluded (not surprisingly) that language and culture are
expressions of our everyday lives. My research strategy thus combined elements of
historical, legal, sociological, and socio-linguistic method, relying both on direct
observation and reference, and on considerable secondary literature.
I conclude that one can teach the French language, but unless it is expressed and
alive as part of our world, it is but a code with limited value. One cannot teach the
Francophone culture. One either lives it (or a limited part of it) in a setting that must
exclude the majority, thereby confining the world around and restricting opportunity, or
one quickly becomes assimilated.
Providing community schools where minority language is strictly enforced and
reinforced at home is only the beginning. To date these ethnocentric shelters are not
available in British Columbia. Perhaps the recently acquired right to administer some of
the Francophone programs by the Francophone minority will empower the Francophone
minority in B.C. and provide higher academic standards, a more attractive image of the
minority language and culture and force the Francophone community to assume a sense
of identity and belonging.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/4338 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Boudreau, Hélène-Marie |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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