The Demography of Quebec's English-Language Schools: Complexity, Changes, and Community Issues

The authors note that Quebec’s English-speaking community is demographically complex and has always been heterogeneous, marked even in the early years by members’ ancestry from different parts of Britain (England, Wales, Scotland) and Ireland. Today, English-speaking community members have identities influenced by multiple linguistic, ethnic, and regional backgrounds. The relationship between English-speaking Quebecers’ language and identity is complicated. They note that over a third of students in the English-language schools’ sector do not have English as their mother tongue. In 2015, the English-language public school sector in Quebec was made up of 63% English mother tongue students, 20.3% French mother tongue students, and 16.7% Allophones. Only in the English Montreal School Board are Allophones (33.9%) significantly outnumbering Francophones (8.9%). The composition of Quebec’s English-language school personnel has also changed. The authors point out that with a greater emphasis on French immersion, many of these teachers are Francophone, and may be less invested in English-speaking community identity. Moreover, an increasing number of English-speaking families are sending their children to French-language schools. In 2015, 11.3% of students with the constitutional right to attend an English-language school attended French-language schools, up from 9.5% in 1991.

Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network (QUESCREN)

[Research Brief no. 5]

2021; revised 2023

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