LIFE AT McGILL FOR THE NATIVE FRENCH-SPEAKING QUEBECER: AN OVERALL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The increasing number of francophone students attending McGill is a factor of unknown potential for the "idea" of this university, for it is generally recognised that the differences between anglophone and francophone are not merely linguistic. In 1978 Gail Johnson conducted a survey of students of bath groups at McGill, on behalf of the University Planning Office, and presents here a selection of significant conclusions that may be drawn from it. The French-speaking students, while feeling no threat to their sense of ethnicity in this one-time "fortress of anglophone supremacy," were nevertheless far quicker to respond to the questionnaire, which we present in full. What is often interesting in this study, as is sometimes the case with research, is the absence of difference between the groups, in areas where one might have expected some. There is also an absence of evidence that contact between the groups is making for any greater interaction between them.