Les partenariats école-communauté dans les écoles de langue française en Ontario

Abstract

Partnerships between French language schools and their community actors are more and more common in Ontario. However, we know very little about them. This article aims to understand what partnerships mean to school actors. Based on a literature review, an ideal-typical definition is constructed and four characteristics are identified to guide further analysis of partnerships : the partners’ identification and origin (school or community sectors), the project’s initiative, its length and the roles assigned to each partner. The results of surveys to the school board’s directions and questionnaires to school’s principals show that a variety of activities, mainly for the benefits of students, exist between French language schools in Ontario and their community. The analysis reveals, however, that many of the participant school actors are uncertain about the definition of a school-community partnership. Many of them consider their specific one-shot projects as school-community partnership. In fact, few of the declared partnerships come close to the ideal-typical definition formulated in this article. 1 Cette etude decoule d’un projet de recherche plus vaste commande et finance par le ministere de l’Education de l’Ontario. Nous aimerions remercier les coauteures de cette etude, Phyllis Dalley et Liliane Dionne ainsi que Tina Desabrais, Anne-Sophie RuestPaquette et Helene Leone qui nous ont assistees lors de la cueillette des donnees.