Attraction des deux principales langues d’enseignement sur les divers groupes linguistiques au Québec, 1969-1970 à 1980-1981

In order to measure the attraction of the two major Quebec education networks - French and English - on the province's different linguistic groups (French, English, others) between 1970 and 1980, the author compared the annual school data to a theoretical situation where the choice of the language of instruction would have no long-term effect on the relative weight of the two main language communities in Quebec. He found that the index of general attractiveness of French and English schools showed that, for the school year 1980-1981, the French network still showed a deficit of three percent while the English network welcomed twenty-one percent more students than the theoretical situation would allow. Although by 1979-1980 the French schools attracted slightly more English-mother-tongue children than the English schools received French-mother-tongue pupils, the author pointed out that the French-language schools still remained far behind that of the English-language minority schools with regard to the language of instruction of Allophones. Indeed, he argues that the proportion of Allophones studying in French had not yet exceeded fifty percent of the expected population while there was still five times more Allophones enrolled in English schools than his hypothesis would allow. The author postulated that at the rate at which school enrolment was evolving, it would take to the end of the 1980s before French schools would receive a number of Allophone students equal to the number of students his theoretical situation expected.

Cahier québécois de démographie

Vol. 10

no. 3

397-425

Décembre 1981

fr