CREOLE SPEAKERS AND EDUCATION: AN EXAMINATION OF THE LANGUAGE SITUATION OF WEST INDIAN STUDENTS IN THE FRENCH AND THE ENGLISH SCHOOLS OF MONTREAL

Authors

  • Nicole Domingue McGill University
  • Michel Laferriere McGill University

Abstract

Among the children of Montreal are many Blacks whose parents are West Indian and Haitian and who speak one or other of the creole languages. The history of development of these languages has led them at the same time to become fully viable as first languages in their own right, and yet sufficiently close to the European languages of the respective colonisers to be mistaken for merely debased versions of them. Domingue and Laferrière show the complexities arising from the various social and political aspirations of the parties involved, including parents, and how they threaten to continue indefinitely to deny to these children, especially those who are assumed to be French-speaking, the same access to education available to their differently-born contemporaries.

Author Biographies

Nicole Domingue, McGill University

Nicole Domingue is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at McGill University. She has done work in creole studies and is particularly interested in possible solutions to the problem of teaching a standard language to non-standard speaking children.

Michel Laferriere, McGill University

Michel Laferriere studied sociology at the Sorbonne and Columbia University, and political science at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. He has taught in universities in New York and at l'Université de Montréal before joining the Department of Social Foundations in Education at McGill as Assistant Professor, and has conducted both research and practical work in the social and cultural adjustment of racial minorities in Canada and the U.S.A.

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Published

1978-04-01

How to Cite

Domingue, N., & Laferriere, M. (1978). CREOLE SPEAKERS AND EDUCATION: AN EXAMINATION OF THE LANGUAGE SITUATION OF WEST INDIAN STUDENTS IN THE FRENCH AND THE ENGLISH SCHOOLS OF MONTREAL. McGill Journal of Education / Revue Des Sciences De l’éducation De McGill, 13(002). Retrieved from https://mje.mcgill.ca/article/view/7203

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 002 (1978)

Section

Articles

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