Language practices of children in francophone families living in a minority linguistic environment
Chapter 2. Methodological framework Chapter 2. Methodological framework

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• 2.1 Data source and target population
• 2.2 Relevance
• 2.3 Independent variables

2.1 Data source and target population

The analyses and the results presented in our study are based on data from the SVOLM carried out by Statistics Canada in 2006. The SVOLM is referred to as a postcensal survey given that the Canadians who completed the 2006 long-form census questionnaire^{Note 1} were used as a sample frame. The SVOLM target population is that of official-language minorities, namely English-speaking people in Quebec and French-speaking people in the rest of Canada. More specifically, those deemed to be French-speaking people outside Quebec are those who indicated in the census that they

1. had French as their mother tongue, either alone or with another language; or
2. had a non-official language as their mother tongue and, of the two official languages, knew only French; or
3. had a non-official language as their mother tongue, knew French and English and spoke French, alone or with another language, most often at home; or
4. had a non-official language as their mother tongue, knew French and English and spoke only a non-official language most often at home; or
5. had English and a non-official language as their mother tongue and, of the two official languages, knew only French.^{Note 2}

For the purposes of our study, the target population was limited to French-speaking people who lived outside Quebec and who were part of the "Children" sample of the SVOLM. Specifically, the sample used for this study is composed of persons under the age of 18 (of whom some were part of the official-language minority and some were not) who had at least one parent who was a member of the francophone minority and who lived outside the province of Quebec. Table 2.1 presents the different sizes of the "Children" sample that was used, both initially and after the conditions were applied.

2.2 Relevance

Because of the wealth of information it contains and the multitude of variables available, the SVOLM "Children" sample makes an innovative contribution to this topic. Two specific aspects of our study represent new elements in the field of study pertaining to language transmission. First, two types of linguistic trajectories are used as independent variables in the analyses. These linguistic trajectories were established in order to have synthetic data that reflects the past and present language behaviours of these children. Second, our research looks at their language behaviours in the context of their personal, extracurricular or recreational activities. Our research therefore covers five variables pertaining to language practices associated with language transmission that have rarely been considered in previous studies.

Linguistic trajectories as explanatory variables

The first variable relating to the linguistic trajectory of these children, that with their friends, was constructed by pooling three variables available in the SVOLM. This variable, which includes those relating to the languages used by these children with their friends before going to school, while in elementary school and at the time of the survey, takes into consideration all of the languages they used with their friends in order to create a synthetic variable from them. Table 2.2 presents the frequencies and the proportions of children for each variable that composes the linguistic trajectory with friends, as well as the new synthetic variable created from this information. This table reveals that the predominant use of English with friends was very prevalent among these children before they started attending school and at the time of the survey, while the use of a language other than French or English with friends was less prevalent at each of the three points in time. We note as well that the use of both official languages with friends is higher for the synthetic trajectory compared with the three variables that compose it. This can be explained by the manner in which the linguistic trajectories with friends were constructed. For example, if a child used primarily French at one of the three points in time looked at in our study and English at another point in time, we agreed that the child had a bilingual trajectory in which both official languages were used with friends. The table in Appendix 1 reveals that the number of "Not Applicable" cases was high before these children started attending school and while attending elementary school but was much lower at the time of the survey. These differences between the proportions associated with the "Not Applicable" category can be explained by the universe of each question the parents were asked about their children. While the question regarding the language used with friends before attending school was asked of children aged 6 or older, that pertaining to the language used with friends in elementary school was asked of those aged 12 or older. All of the children surveyed were asked the question about the language they currently used with their friends.

The variable relating to the children's linguistic trajectory in school was constructed using four linguistic variables available in the SVOLM, taking into consideration the possible change in the type of school between kindergarten and the time of the survey. The new synthetic variable reflects the languages the children used while attending school, as shown in Figure 2.1 and Table 2.3, resulting in a synthetic linguistic trajectory in school.

Description for figure 2.1

This figure shows the steps for the creation of the linguistic trajectory in school using five school variables of the survey and the successive school levels across time. Four variables can be used to determine a child’s linguistic trajectory in school. These are the language used at daycare, in pre-kindergarten, in kindergarten and at the time of the survey. The linguistic trajectory in school for most of the children is thus established on the basis of these four variables. In cases in which the same language was reported in kindergarten and at the current point in time in a child’s schooling, the type of school attended was considered. If a change in the type of school that resulted in a change in the language of schooling was observed during the time interval between kindergarten and the time of the survey, the child’s linguistic trajectory in school was revised to reflect the child’s actual school and linguistic trajectory.

Source: Survey on the Vitality of Official-Language Minorities (2006).

Figure 2.1 presents the four points in time during a child's schooling for which a question about the language used in school was asked in the SVOLM. Those four variables, which can be used to determine a child's linguistic trajectory in school, are the language used at daycare, in pre-kindergarten, in kindergarten and at the time of the survey. These variables are identified in the black boxes (solid lines) in this figure. The linguistic trajectory in school for most of the children is thus established on the basis of these four variables. In cases in which the same language was reported in kindergarten and at the current point in time in a child's schooling, the type of school attended^{Note 3} was considered (fuchsia-coloured box with dotted lines in Figure 2.1). If a change in the type of school that resulted in a change in the language of schooling was observed during the time interval between kindergarten and the time of the survey, the child's linguistic trajectory in school was revised to reflect the child's actual school and linguistic trajectory.

Table 2.3 presents the frequencies and the proportions for these children for each of the four linguistic variables that make up the linguistic trajectory in school, as well as for the synthetic variable relating to their linguistic trajectory in school. We can see that the predominant use of French is very similar to that of English for these children when they were attending daycare, the difference between the two being less than a thousand children. The use of French increases along with the level of schooling and more rapidly than the predominant use of English.

As was the case with Table 2.2, which shows the linguistic trajectory with friends, the children's use of both official languages is higher in the case of the synthetic variable for this trajectory compared with the four variables that compose it. Once again this can be explained by the way in which the linguistic trajectories in school were constructed. If a child used primarily French at any of the four points in times being looked at and English at other times, a bilingual linguistic trajectory in school (in which both official languages are used) was attributed to the child.

The table in Appendix 2 reveals that the proportions associated with the "Not Applicable" category are high for these children at the beginning of their school trajectory (i.e., at daycare and in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten). This can be explained by the substantial number of children who did not attend school at these levels as well as by the universe of respondents to these questions. In comparison, the "Not Applicable" category is less significant in the synthetic variable that relates to the complete linguistic trajectory in school of these children. The table in Appendix 2 also illustrates the fact that few of the children were educated in a language other than French or English.

Description of Chart 2.1

The title of the graph is "Chart 2.1 Distribution of linguistic trajectories."
This is a stacked bar chart.
This is a horizontal bar graph, so categories are on the vertical axis and values on the horizontal axis.
There are in total 2 categories in the vertical axis. The horizontal axis starts at 0 and ends at 100 with ticks every 25 points.
There are 3 series in this graph.
The horizontal axis is "percent."
The vertical axis is "Linguistic trajectories."
The title of series 1 is "French."
The minimum value is 25.0 and it corresponds to "With friends."
The maximum value is 55.4 and it corresponds to "School."
The title of series 2 is "English."
The minimum value is 33.6 and it corresponds to "School."
The maximum value is 49.8 and it corresponds to "With friends."
The title of series 3 is "Both languages."
The minimum value is 10.9 and it corresponds to "School."
The maximum value is 25.2 and it corresponds to "With friends."

Data table for chart 2.1
Table summary
This table displays the Data table for chart 2.1. French, English and Both languages, calculated using percentage units of measure (appearing as column headers).

	French	English	Both languages
	percentage
With friends	25.0	49.8	25.2
School	55.4	33.6	10.9
Source: Survey on the Vitality of Official-Languages Minorities (2006).

Chart 2.1 reveals that the distribution of children within the different linguistic trajectories varies considerably. While the proportion accounted for by a francophone trajectory in school is 55.4%, it is the anglophone trajectory that is most prevalent with friends, at 49.8%. This chart also shows that the proportions associated with the francophone and bilingual trajectories for these children in their interactions with friends are roughly the same (25.0% for the francophone trajectory with friends and 25.2% for the bilingual trajectory). Conversely, the children were far more likely to have an anglophone rather than a bilingual trajectory during their schooling (33.6% for the anglophone school trajectory compared with 10.9% for the bilingual trajectory). Not surprisingly, the tables in Appendices 1 and 2 show that the proportion of these children without a linguistic trajectory in school is much higher than the proportion of children without a linguistic trajectory with friends (17.6% for the linguistic trajectory in school versus 6.8% for the linguistic trajectory with friends). This difference can be explained by the ages of the children selected: few of the children aged 0 to 4 had started school, while a larger percentage of them had friends.

While Chart 2.1 shows the differences between trajectories, Table 2.4 reveals that there is a strong relationship between the linguistic trajectories in school and with friends. It is noted that 97.4% of the children who had a francophone trajectory with their friends also had a francophone trajectory in school, while close to 95% who had an anglophone trajectory in school also had an anglophone trajectory with their friends. However, these relationships were not of the same intensity in all cases involving the linguistic trajectories of these children. For example, of all of the children who had a francophone trajectory in school, just over 40% had a francophone trajectory with their friends, while among those who had an anglophone trajectory with their friends, 64.1% also had an anglophone trajectory in school. Table 2.4 also points to a degree of bilingualization in the language behaviours of these children. We note as well that close to 40% of those who had a francophone trajectory in school had a bilingual trajectory with their friends.

We note in Table 2.4 that children who show a bilingual linguistic trajectory for one of the dimensions (at school or with friends) do not necessarily have a bilingual trajectory for the other dimension. Among those who had a bilingual school trajectory, one-third of them had a bilingual trajectory with their friends and more than three out of five children (62.1%) had an anglophone trajectory with their friends. Conversely, fewer than 15% of those who had a bilingual trajectory with their friends also a bilingual trajectory in school, and four out of five of them (80.2%) had a francophone trajectory in school.

Use of language practice variables

The second key aspect of our study is the use of language practice variables in assessing language transmission rather than the traditional linguistic variables^{Note 4} generally used. Our study looks at five variables relating to the language behaviours of these children in their personal, extracurricular or recreational activities. Those five language practice variables are as follows:

1. the language used when watching television,
2. the language used when browsing the Internet,
3. the language used when playing organized sports,
4. the language used when participating in organized non-sports-related activities,
5. the language used for reading.

The first four variables relating to the linguistic behaviour of these children^{Note 5} were obtained directly from the SVOLM "Children" file. With regard to the language they used for reading, it represents a synthesis of three variables available in the file. The language used for reading is based on the variable relating to the language currently used for reading, of which the universe is composed of all of children who, according to their parents, read a minimum of a few times a month. For those children who were not included in the universe or whose parents had not provided a response to this first question, two other variables indicating whether the children were read to or told stories by a household member or had been read to or told stories by a household member in the past were considered.

Table 2.5 reveals that these children show a variety of language practices. We note, for example, that the exclusive use of French is much more prevalent for reading than for the other activities. We also observed that the exclusive use of English is highest for organized sports and non-sports-related activities, at over 50%. Moreover, the predominant use of English greatly surpasses the use of French in four of the five activities; only the predominant use of English for reading is lower than 50%. Finally, three language practice variables show a substantial number of children in the "Not Applicable" category. These cases of non-response and exclusion from the universes of the questions concerned mostly apply to children who do not engage in these three types of activities (browsing the Internet, participating in organized sports and participating in non-sports-related activities).

2.3 Independent variables

The literature on language transmission deals with a number of variables that can influence or determine children's language practices. In our study, many independent variables based on the language transmission variables referred to in the literature have been included in the analyses in order to identify the children's language practices in the context of their personal, extracurricular or recreational activities. While the five language practice variables presented in the previous section are looked at in the descriptive analyses, 11 independent variables are introduced. These independent variables can be combined into 4 sets: individual, school-related, family-related and contextual variables. They are presented in the following table.

The first category of independent variables presented in Table 2.6^{Note 6} combines the individual variables. This group is composed of four variables, including the child's age and linguistic characteristics. Close to half of the children in the study present an anglophone trajectory with their friends, while the proportions associated with the children's use of French or both official languages were similar. With regard to the language behaviours of these children, the "Language spoken at home" variable is strongly correlated with the "Mother tongue" variable. Just over half of the children in the sample spoke English most often at home, while more than one-third spoke French most often. In comparison, just under half of them had French as their mother tongue and 43.0% had English as their mother tongue.

There is only one school-related variable in the second group of independent variables, namely, the child's "Linguistic trajectory in school". Other variables such as the level^{Note 7} and type^{Note 8} of school a child attended were considered in the analyses but are not included in our study because they are strongly correlated with other variables. The level of school attended is correlated with a child's age, and the type of school attended is correlated with a child's linguistic trajectory in school. Roughly 55% of the children in the study used French at school, compared with approximately one-third who used English. The table in Appendix 3 reveals that close to one in five children (17.6%) are in the "Not Applicable" category, a finding that can primarily be explained by the fact that these children are too young to go to school and therefore were not asked questions about school attendance.

The third category of independent variables comprises family-related variables. The "Language composition of couple" variable related to the children's biological parents provides information about the parents' mother tongues and whether or not the family's language status was endogamous or exogamous. This variable was chosen in the analyses because it reflects the linguistic origins of each parent and because it holds considerable importance in the studies dealing with language transmission. Just over half of the children in the study had parents who formed an exogamous couple,^{Note 9} while one-third of them had parents who formed an endogamous francophone couple.^{Note 10} The last two variables in this group relate to the highest level of education attained by the parents. These two variables show that more than 60% of parents had a postsecondary or university level of education. They also reveal that, overall, the mothers attained higher levels of education than the fathers.

Contextual variables make up the fourth and final group of independent variables. This category of variables is composed of three variables that situate these children in their environment and the place where they live: the "Region" in which they reside, the "Concentration index of francophone minority" in the CSD of residence and the "Proportion of use of French as child's first official language spoken (FOLS)" in the CD of residence. Close to three-quarters of the children in the study lived in two provinces: Ontario (57.4%, including close to one-quarter of all children in the study (23.7%) living in the east and the north) and New Brunswick (15.6%).^{Note 11} Fewer than 30% of the children lived in a CSD with a strong linguistic minority concentration (i.e., a CSD in which the percentage of francophones within the total population was high). One-fifth of the children in our study lived in a CD in which the proportion of children^{Note 12} whose FOLS is French was higher than 25%. However, approximately half of the children lived in a CSD in which the francophone minority concentration was low (46.3%) or a CD in which the proportion of children whose FOLS is French was below 5% (53.3%). The inclusion of these variables in the descriptive models reflects the language composition of the place of residence and its influence on the language practices of these children.

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