Les jeunes âgés de 16 à 25 ans issus des communautés anglophones du Bas-Saint-Laurent : représentations et sentiment d’appartenance

The author focuses on the English-speaking community of the Lower Saint Lawrence region of Quebec and specifically on the youth of this area. Her research was conducted in partnership with Heritage Lower Saint Lawrence, an organization which represents and offers services to the Anglophone population of this region. The author points out that although it is know that there is a historic Anglophone community in the region, especially around the former village of Metis Beach (today Métis-sur-Mer), there is no current comprehensive data on unilingual and bilingual English speakers in the Lower Saint Lawrence. Her main objective was to generate knowledge about the relationship between Anglophone and bilingual youth and the English-speaking community, as well as how these youth might perceive their community. The author conducted interviews with fifteen individuals between the ages of 16 and 25 who lived in the region for at least two years and who have gone to an English school for at least two years or who have at least one parent whose mother tongue is English. One of the main conclusions that the author draws from her research is that the English-speaking minority in the region emerges as a community when it is studied as a network of smaller communities or groupings of individuals. She notes that there can be concentrations of individuals or relationships. Sometimes they can be physical, like the one in Métis-sur-Mer, mainly made up of English-speaking summer residents, but they can also be rather symbolic, like the concentrations around the main Anglophone institutions: Metis Beach School, the only English-language school in the region, and Heritage Lower Saint Lawrence. Furthermore, she argues, these institutions play a fundamental role in the creation and reproduction of the sense of community. As for sense of belonging, youth feel that they belong to several communities at same time, which sometimes have different interests, and they negotiate a personalized sense of belonging in their daily actions.

Master's Thesis

Université du Québec/INRS Urbanisation, Culture et Société

Montréal

2018

154p.

fr