REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION IN QUEBEC: LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE USA.

Wally Lambert had an intellectual and social curiosity that never ceased. After making seminal contributions to bilingual education, he began focusing on the intergroup, community context that formed the back-drop for school-based language programs. This led him to multicultural innercity urban centres in the United States where we sought to assess the debate between the Canadian mosaic and the American melting pot. To our surprise every cultural group we studied had a multicultural vision, and a shared understanding that while the heritage culture might be appropriate for the home and in the ethnic community, mainstream American culture and English needed to dominate the wider public environment. These surprising findings may be instructive for the current debate in Quebec over "reasonable accommodation." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]