Identity and Youth: An Ethnographic Study in English-Speaking Schools in the Montreal Area

1
Identity and Youth An Ethnographic Study in
English-Speaking Schools in the Montreal Area

• Diane Gérin-Lajoie
• OISE, University of Toronto
• diane.gerin.lajoie_at_utoronto.ca

2
Conceptual Orientation

• Critical theoretical framework drawn from the
  areas of the sociology of race and ethnic
  relations (identity, as social construct) and the
  sociology of education
• Social relations are understood as tied to social
  practices and power relations therefore these
  relations are socially constructed
• Power relations examined in the areas of language
  and culture

3
Identity, a Social Construct

• Social actors sense of belonging to a specific
  group and their rapport to language, race,
  culture and identity are tightly linked to their
  social practices, which are themselves embedded
  in specific power relations
• Identity is a dynamic concept, always evolving
• Fragmented identities (Cardinal, 1994)
• Diverse forms of positioning with regards to
  identity
• New identity forms, such as bilingual identity
  (Gérin-Lajoie, 2003, 2011 Dallaire, 2003
  Juteau, 1994)
• Hall (2006) refers to these social actors as
  postmodern subjects

4
English Minority Language Communities in Quebec

• Almost 600,000 Anglophones live in Quebec ( 13
  of the total population of the province)
• The Anglophone population is linguistically and
  culturally diverse
• Education in the official minority language
  (English) is a legal right under the Quebec
  Charter of the French language
• Nine Anglophone school districts in Quebec
  (English as first language (elementary, secondary
  schools))

5
Objectives of the Study

• First Objective
• To understand how adolescents as members of a
  linguistic minority relate to and define
  themselves in terms of their own identity,
  looking more specifically at the notion of
  bilingual identity (and multilingual identity)
• Second Objective
• To deconstruct the notion of bilingual identity
  (and multilingual identity) in order to a) better
  understand its signification for the adolescents
  and b) to examine if such a form of identity can
  exist in itself as a stable phenomenon, or if it
  is a transition phase that will lead to complete
  assimilation to the linguistic majority of the
  province of residence

6
Methodological Framework

• Population under study
• Students in Secondary 3 at 2 English language
  high schools in the Montreal and the South Shore
  areas (14 years old).
• Fieldwork
• Survey administered to 106 students on the
  teenagers linguistic practices early in the
  study in order to select 10 participants for the
  ethnographic inquiry (5 in each school).
• Ethnographic study
• - observations in school settings (total of 105
  days)
• - semi-structured interviews with the
  participants, members of their families, their
  friends, their teachers (total of 113
  interviews)
• - analysis of schools official documents

7
Some of the Findings

• First Result
• In majority, participants claim a bilingual
  identity or a trilingual identity, with a sense
  of belonging to the linguistic minority group
• Second Result
• The politics of language at the core of the
  discourse
• . Minority language, a right
• . The inclusion/exclusion divide

8
Rapport to Identity
School A School A School B School B
Angl.Identity 0 1.3
Franc.Identity 0 0
Bilingual Identity 20 68.4
Trilingual Identity 80 30.3
Total 100 100

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Having a bilingual or trilingual identity

• Claiming a bilingual or a trilingual identity by
  the participants means acknowledging that they
  had been born into a specific context in which
  various linguistic and cultural identities
  intermingled, either as a result of their family
  origins or as a result of being part of what
  society calls a language minority group
• Linguistic border-crossing do not prevent
  participants from having a strong sense of
  membership in their linguistic and cultural
  minority

10
Having a bilingual or a trilingual identity

• Well if somebody asks me what nationality I am,
  I'll tell them Italian, but as far as the way I
  speak, English is my first language. That's what
  I've always been brought up with. I mean when I
  was really small I spoke Italian but I don't
  know, just my roots go back to my parents, my
  grandparents, whatever. And the school is like
  full of Italian people, and even like a lot of
  them also dont speak very much Italian, and for
  almost everyone here English is the first
  language.
• (Taylor, 4th interview)

11
The politics of language

• A significant part of the discourse of the study
  participants concerns the politics of language in
  Quebec. As members of a linguistic minority,
  participants at both schools addressed the issue,
  as did most of their parents and friends.
• They spoke about their rights and the way in
  which they use language in their daily lives.
  They spoke about how they feel as
  English-speakers living in a French Quebec.

12
Language rights

• We have, because of the fact that we went to
  (English) school, we have that blue paper, its
  like gold. So if I send my children to French
  school, they cannot go and change to English
  school. So that is the number one, thats the
  reason. Im not going to lose that privilege. So
  we put both of them at School E which is French
  immersion
• (Taylor, Interview with parents).
• I was thinking of putting her (daughter) into a
  Francophone school. Then, you know, with the
  laws, when I decided not to, in case one of my
  children decided to marry an immigrant or, you
  know, a Francophone. So I put them in the French
  immersion school.
• (Angela, Interview with parents).

13
The inclusion/exclusion divide

• The participants (students, family members,
  friends) feel sometimes excluded from the Quebec
  society, even when they are able to speak French
  or when they share some of the Québécois values
• They do not feel recognized as full members of
  the Quebec society 

14
The inclusion/exclusion divide

• I feel like a Québécois. But, but its like if
  you ask any French Canadian, Joe (Italian last
  name), tu es italien toi ?, like nobody ever said
  to me tu es québécois. Nobody nobody nobody. And
  what, I live here another two generations, and
  Im still not going to be Québécois. But if
  theres anything that I would have to be, I would
  have to say Québécois. But I cant say to the
  people Québécois, because they dont accept it.
  If I say it to my friends, they say what? Are you
  crazy, youre not Québécois, because youre not.
  Theyll never accept you. So why are you saying
  youre Québécois?
• (Taylor, Interview with parents)

15
The inclusion/exclusion divide

• I don't know, I guess like because we're like a
  small community in Quebec, since we're English,
  and like I guess the French people, they look at
  us different because we may not be as fluent in
  French as they are. So maybe they feel like they
  have an advantage over us because they can speak
  better French than us. And I guess there's a bit
  of jealousy because we can speak better English
  than them. So like if we can be fluent in French
  and English, we have like more job opportunities
  ...
• (Vince, Interview with friends)