Language Diversity in the Classroom - ymerleksi - home

218 Language Diversity in the ClassroomCanadian society. Interpreted in this way, it becomes something veryNorth American: voluntary marginal differentiation among peopleswho are equal participants in the society. (Burnet, 1975: 211)She went on to note, however, that if the policy was construed as somewholesale maintenance of ‘foreign’ cultures in Canada, then it would not(and perhaps should not) endure.The policy certainly attracted criticism from the beginning. At atheoretical level, the late John Porter (1972) observed that officialmulticulturalism might prove a regressive force by helping to maintainan ethnic stratification that places group interests above those of theindividual. Another frequently voiced criticism has been that the entiremulticultural thrust has been politically opportunistic, both in the largersense of attempting some national reconciliation between the two‘charter’ groups (i.e. the French and the English) and the others (the‘allophones’), and in the more specific desire to attract ‘ethnic’ voters.The difficulty (some said the absurdity) of attempting to supportmulticulturalism within a French-English bilingualism was also quicklybrought to the fore. A well-known Ukrainian-Canadian scholar (Lupul,1982: 100) thus described a situation of ‘political pragmatism’ whichpleased no one... The failure to provide multiculturalism with alinguistic base especially displeased the Ukrainians; the loosening ofthe ties between language and culture angered the francophones whodisliked any suggestion that the status of their culture was on a parwith that of other ethnic groups. 2Much criticism of multiculturalism has indeed come from thefrancophone community. Rocher (1973), for example, pointed out thatmulticulturalism might undermine official bilingualism, might beincompatible with national unity, and could generally prove a regressivestep for the French who have their own longstanding concerns withdominance and equality. The fear, above all, is that the francophonesmight be reduced to the status of the ethnic ‘others’, the ‘allophones’. Itcould, of course, be argued that a multiculturalism policy must have asimilar effect on the anglophone community, but this latter group is notin the same precarious position as the French. Indeed, a cynical view isthat the (relatively) greater support for multiculturalism from the Englishsector existed because it was seen as a defusing of the French ‘problem’in Canada. There is a dilemma here for francophones: a rejection ofmulticulturalism on the grounds just noted may have some substancebut, equally, a non-interventionist policy on the part of the government