Cree Decision Making Concerning Language: A Case Study

Abstract

In 1993, nine Cree communities on the east coast of James Bay (Quebec, Canada) and inland began work on a pilot project to use Cree as the language of instruction(CLIP) in two communities, and have continued to extend this so that now Cree is the main language of instruction up to grade four (the target level) in many of the communities. We describe the complex context of language choice in schools before CLIP was implemented. In our analysis, four important threads of concern were identified: (1) locus of control (who had power in the communities and schools); (2) economies of scale (how the resources to accomplish Cree-medium teaching were created); (3) community visions of language and education (the evolution of attitudes, particularly of parents, towards the pertinent languages and their uses);and(4) the role of literacies(changes in community members' expectations of what literacy in Cree and English were good for). Our conclusion is that no simple models of language use are likely to be adequate for explaining or predicting outcomes in such complex situations. Documenting these cases longitudinally and in many facets provides unique local micro-analysis against which other circumstances can be compared.