Languages in Contact: An Ethnographic Study of Interaction in an Immersion School

Abstract

Since bilingual school programs are part of the fabric of society, they reflect major social patterns and processes that characterize society at large. Thus, an understanding of the social objectives and outcomes of bilingual education programs requires an understanding of both the broad sociocultural context of which they are a part and the relationship of the school to its larger context. In the present study, ethnographic procedures were used to observe social interactions among the staff of an early French immersion program in Montreal over a one-year period. Since the staff was made up of French Canadian and English Canadian teachers who were members of ethnolinguistic groups in conflict, it was expected that social interaction in the school would also be conflictual. Strategies of conflict management were thus also observed. It was found, as expected, that interaction among the staff was conflictual and that the underlying tension could be related to societally based group conflict. It was also found that the teachers used two main interaction strategies to minimize interpersonal conflict and to maintain a semblance of professional harmony: 1) avoidance of social interaction and 2) the predominant use of English in cross-group communication. These strategies in turn can be traced to now outdated sociolinguistic norms that prevailed when English dominated French in the community. These findings suggest that although the long-term social objectives of immersion and other bilingual school programs may be to promote bilingualism and facilitate intergroup contact, the actual interaction patterns of teachers working in such schools may portray the very conflict and inequities they seek to resolve.