This book is a path-breaking examination of identity construction among minority-language youth. Based on a three-year study at two English-language high schools in the Montreal area, it builds on Diane Gérin-Lajoie's previous work on Francophone minority identity in Ontario and extends her analysis to Canada's other official language minority: anglophones living in Quebec.

The book begins with an overview of the social and educational reality of Quebec's anglophone minority, and then presents the findings on students' language practices. The central chapters sketch identity portraits of the study's participants, and the later chapters pursue analyses of the themes raised by the study. The result is an original contribution to the understanding of language and identity that will be of interest to school administrators and teachers working in minority-language communities in Canada, and to scholars working on issues of minorities in the social sciences.

Diane Gérin-Lajoie is Professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto and she is cross-appointed tot the Centre for Franco-Ontarian Studies. She teaches graduate courses in the areas of minority education and qualitative research.

Diane Gerin-Lajoie's profile page

"The youths' portraits are uniformly structured, yet very different one fron the other. One really gets to the heart of the different life conditions and experiences of the youth, their differing representations of language and linguistic communities, and their different ensuing identity positioning."— “Normand Labrie, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education