Caribbean Immigrant Parents' Involvement in Their Children's Education in Francophone Elementary Schools in Montreal

The author explores parental involvement in Francophone elementary schools among six parents who emigrated from the Anglophone Caribbean region to Montreal. They were not proficient in French, but were required by Bill 101 (the Charter of the French Language) to enroll their children in Francophone schools. Most parents had no prior knowledge of this law and intended to enroll their children in English schools. Almost all parents reported that they valued bilingualism. However, half of the parents had children who repeated an elementary grade because of difficulties with the French language. Despite the structures of schooling that could limit parents' agency, the author’s analysis revealed that parents used various strategies to navigate the school including, building social networks, claiming insider status in schools, promoting literacy skills such as spiritual literacy and advocating for their children in schools. The author found that the parents did not generally talk about race or racism during the interviews, but she concluded that the silence on race was located within a discourse of silence on racism and the implicit erasure of the Black presence in Montreal.

PhD dissertation

McGill University

Montreal

2016

xiv-237p.

en