Discourses of Intercultural Understanding in Ontario French as a Second Language Curricula

This study examines the discursive underpinnings of the 2013/2014 Ontario French as a Second Language (FSL) curriculum and associated documents. The primary aim of the study was to understand the orientation of the curriculum text to culture through the lens of an anti-racist and anti-colonial critical framework. This study employed critical discourse analysis that balanced structural and poststructural approaches to analysis to examine the sociopolitical and historical contexts of the documents, the material construction of discourses, and the ordering of discourses. The key findings of the study include the tendency of the FSL documents to perpetuate myths that glorify Canadian nationalism, reinforce established racial hierarchies that treat Indigenous nations as inferior to Francophones, encourage cultural generalizations and tokenism, and sanitize the violence of settler-colonialism. These findings suggest the importance for educators to engage with critical stances like culturally sustaining pedagogies to critique and question dominant power structures in FSL programming.