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Education and the Francophone
Community Outside Québec:
The Needs of Women
BY
LINDA CARDINAL AND CECILE CODERRE
The Réseau national action-éducation des
femmes (National Action Network for the Education of Women) decided in May of
1987 to undertake a study on the educational needs of francophone women outside
Québec in order to better understand their situation and encourage their
access to education and ultimately their greater participation in the
political, cultural, and economic spheres.
RNAEF is a non-profit organization formed in 1981 to
promote the education of Francophone women in Canada. The organization's
activities focus mainly around eliminating teaching ghettoes, developing
popular and non-sexist education, eradicating illiteracy, and promoting the
recognition of experiential learning. For RNAEF, education is a tool with which
women can gain status, power, and prestige necessary for their full
participation in the life of the country.
Though there is little available information on the needs
of Francophone women outside Québec, they have always played an
essential role in the debates around the education of Francophone and of their
linguistic rights. Consider, for example, the role of nuns in the development
of French services and schools across Canada.
The starting point for the study by RNAEF is, firstly, in
the movement to secure access to education for Francophones, and secondly, to
gather information on the conditions in which Francophone women live, study,
work, and raise their children, information usually excluded from historical or
sociological studies. Thus the completed study will combine a socio-historic
analysis of the education of Francophone women Outside Québec, a
statistical portrait of Francophone women, and a study of their educational and
learning needs. For further information,. contact Linda Cardinal or
Cécile Coderre, co-researchers of the projects, at the University of
Ottawa, or Chantal St. -Pierre, president of RNAEF. |
