1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«The present study aimed to understand whether children from different sites, OLMC [Official Language Minority Communities], and from families with differing language use strategies would vary in terms of their amount of exposure and in terms of their vocabulary abilities.» (p. 18)

Questions/Hypothèses :
First, the authors «hypothesise that the majority language of the broader community would influence the amount of exposure received from formative adults and that few differences would be present across sites within the same OLMC (i.e. Edmonton and Winnipeg would be similar, and Montreal and Québec City would be similar).» (p. 7) The authors also «hypothesised an interaction such that families in French OLMC might support French by using MinL@H [minoritised language at home] more than families in English OLMC, which would result in a higher percent of exposure to French.» (p. 7)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
First, «children in the French OLMC (i.e. French is the minoritised language) were recruited in Edmonton and Winnipeg, and the children from the English OLMC were recruited in Montréal and Québec City.» (p. 7) «A total of 61 children ranging in age between 41 and 68 months (mean age = 54.35 months) were recruited.» (p. 8) However, ten children did not complete the tasks. «The remaining 51 children were from the following sites: 23 children in the French group of OLMCs (i.e. Edmonton, N = 9; Winnipeg, N = 14) and 28 children in the English group of OLMCs (i.e. Montréal, N = 7; Québec City, N = 21).» (p. 9)

Instruments :
Questionnaire

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

Results of this study «suggest that during the preschool years, families are able to find sufficient support for both languages, even when one is a minoritised language in the community. This was particularly evident in the French minoritised communities where only 13% of the children in this study attended English-only daycares, and the remaining attended bilingual or French-language daycares. Since English-language day-cares are more widely available in English majority settings, this difference speaks to parents actively seeking out a French-language preschool context. In contrast, only 7% of children in English minoritised communities attended English-only daycares, and an additional 7% attended a bilingual English-French daycare setting.» (p. 19) «Overall, the children in the present study received sufficient exposure to each language within the home or in combination with daycare outside of the home to complete the vocabulary tasks in both languages. These results speak to the interplay between families and the broader community that contribute to supporting the children’s language development. We also found that parents were taking an active role in maintaining language abilities in the minoritised language, whether English or French, during these preschool years and that there are multiple paths open to families who want their child to grow up bilingually.» (p. 20)