1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«This paper describes a study that sought to determine the beliefs, practices, and needs of parents in Montreal, Quebec, who were raising their infants and toddlers bi/multilingually. [T]his study offers a unique opportunity to compare the perspectives of families towards raising their children in the official societal languages, French and English, with their perspectives towards raising their children in at least one heritage language.» (p. 614-615)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«A total of 27 parents (mothers=21, fathers=6) from 20 households participated in the [study]. They were recruited from a database of families interested in participating in research, who were identified through government birth lists and community outreach. Participants were screened on the phone for whether they met inclusion criteria, specifically that their family self-identified as bi/multilingual, they lived in the Montreal area, they were able to speak and understand English and/or French, and they had a typically-developing first-born child under 3 years of age (M=1.72 years, SD=0.77 years).» (p. 617)

Instruments :
- Questionnaire
- Guide d’entretien de groupe
- Guide d’entretien semi-directif

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique
Analyse de contenu

3. Résumé

According to the results, «the parents’ beliefs, language use, and plans for their child’s future converged with Quebec’s policy of interculturalism, which places French in a dominant public role and which officially supports cultural and linguistic diversity, particularly in the family domain. In line with official language policy, parents valued French language knowledge, viewed it as a source of cultural capital […], and believed their child required a strong background in the common public language through formal education. If the parents were not using French in the home, they planned to make up for it by putting their child in French schools even when they had eligibility for English schools. Meanwhile, they themselves were strongly supportive of cultural and linguistic diversity, but they primarily supported those languages in private, not public domains–in the home, with friends and family members.» (p. 623) «They also indicate the continued effectiveness of Quebec’s official support for French, despite linguistic competition from English and the linguistic diversity that comes with the province’s high immigration rates. However, this study raises concerns about the long-term prospects of heritage languages in Quebec society, and it questions the capability of Quebec’s interculturalism policy […] to simultaneously support both linguistic and cultural diversity as well as the current approach to promoting the role of French as the common public language.» (p. 625)