Mother Tongue and Language of Instruction in Quebec's Public Schools: Recent Evolution. Document 55.

The decade of the 1970s saw a relative decline in the enrollment in Quebec Province of students in English schools, and a relative increase in enrollment in French schools. This shift was especially reflected in a decreasing proportion of Francophone and Allophone (having neither French nor English as a native language) students attending school in English. The trend is with the adoption in Quebec of the French Language Charter. An attempt is made to gauge approximately the role of factors likely to explain the reduction in the number of students attending school in English, for both the public and private systems, within the Province. In order of importance, the factors to which the decline in enrollment can be ascribed are: (1) declining birth rate, (2) the criteria governing admissibility to English schools as defined by the French Language Charter, (3) net negative displacements, and (4) the voluntary choice of French by students otherwise eligible to attend English schools. (Author/JB)