The Politics of Numbers : Quebec’s Historical Struggle with Ethnic and Linguistic Categories

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
The Politics of Numbers : Quebec’s Historical Struggle with Ethnic and Linguistic Categories
Abstract
The author maintains that the production of indicators is intimately linked to the political context and therefore meets a social demand based on historical issues. Quebec, he points out, is no exception. The author explains that the use of official ethnic and linguistic categories in Quebec has evolved from a purely ethnic perspective based on ethnic ancestry aimed at assessing the demographic balance between French and English (1860–1960), to linguistic categories with a strong ethnic content defined by mother tongue and language spoken at home (1960–1990), to the more recent period (since the 1990s) when the official linguistic policy in an increasing diversified population aimed at favouring the use of French as the common language in the public sphere. Clearly, he points out, mother tongue and language spoken at home do not meet the public sphere criteria. The author's main argument is that language monitoring today should be a policy-related issue and therefore aimed at measuring the evolution of the French language in the public sphere.
Publication
Ethnic and Racial Studies
Volume
Vol. 40
Issue
no. 13
Pages
2318-2325
Date
October 2017
Language
en
Citation
Piché, Victor. “The Politics of Numbers : Quebec’s Historical Struggle with Ethnic and Linguistic Categories.” Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 40, no. 13 (October 2017): 2318–2325.
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