Cree Decision Making Concerning Language: A Case Study

Decision Making
Cree Decision Making Concerning

Language: A Case Study
1- Identifying problem:
In 1993, nine Cree communities on the east coast of James Bay (Québec, 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).
2- Study:
2-1- Economies of scale
In addition to issues of uniting community and leadership concerning the adoption of a
programme of vernacular language in the school, Unesco (1953) identified that getting
enough educational materials developed in the language, getting enough general reading
materials prepared, and getting enough teachers trained were crucial potential obstacles to
vernacular education. The success of change from within is related not only to leadership or
control, but also to the essential human and material resources available for the task.
Looking at reports on education in the Cree area of northern Québec before about 1990
would lead one to think that educational change in the direction of Cree-medium
programmes was doomed to failure. As noted above, there was no increase or qualitative
change in Cree language use in the schools between 1975 and 1989 (see Tanner 1981: 16–
17). In addition, a considerable amount of the Amerindianisation vision was not realised in
teacher training because Stream A, supposed to train teachers to teach regular classes
through the medium of an Aboriginal language, turned into a stream to teach Aboriginal
teachers to teach their languages as subjects of instruction (Tanner, 1981: 11–12). The Cree
Way Project produced a considerable amount of material in the 1970s, but this did not
appear to be making much impact.
2-2- Community visions of language and education

Aside from the matter of who is making the decisions and what their resources are, this story
tells a great deal about language attitudes among all the stakeholders. One could begin by
looking at the languages that parents take seriously as needed by their children for their
future lives. Tanner’s 1981 survey indicated that parents expected that learning English
would be a central part of the education for their children. A considerable number of parents
were prepared to have Cree eliminated from schooling altogether. Whatever such parents
expected would happen to their children’s skills in Cree, they clearly put their priority on
English in education. For them it would seem that they had to make a choice between Cree
or English.
2-3- The roles of literacies
There is no doubt that both the form and social functions of literacy in English and French
relative to those of Cree are vastly different in James Bay communities. (See Burnaby and
MacKenzie (1985) for a description of literacy in all three languages in Waskaganish.) With
respect to attitudes towards language and language learning, the Cree parents seemed to feel
specifically that their children should learn literacy in English or French first rather than in
Cree. Drapeau (1992) considers this a likely reason for the parents pressuring the teacher in a
grade one Montagnais medium class to teach French as well as Montagnais and to offer
remedial classes in French reading outside of school hours. Tanner (1981: 19) comments ‘the
main difference between Cree expectations and the concept of Bilingual Education is over
the role played by mother tongue literacy in the latter approach’.While Cree parents could
see the point of using oral Cree in school to explain concepts and do classroom management,
they were not as sure that literacy in Cree first would be appropriate. In the case of the CLIP
programme at present, there is no doubt about the fact that initial literacy in Cree is a central
part of the programme.
Discussion
Locus of control
In a complex situation such as this one, there are many interesting facets. From the
perspective of the most rudimentary politics of the situation, it is clear that simply having
local control over certain decision making in school jurisdiction was not enough to bring
about a major change like medium of instruction. And, of course, local control was by no
means absolute. Because of the Crees’ belief in the importance of a formal, Western-style
education for their children, they agreed in 1975 to work within established mainstream
frameworks for education, and it was undoubtedly working out many of the parameters of
that control that occupied the School Board in the first few years.
3- Conclusions
In this case study, we have shown that, after a period of painful submersion in highly
assimilative forms of education for a number of decades, the Cree communities in question,
and their leadership, have been able to take advantage of a number of factors to create a
unique situation. This promises to lead towards their stated goal for their children of both
succeeding in mainstream formal education and retaining their language and culture. Some
of the contributing factors came from main stream in fluences.

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Decision Making

Cree Decision Making Concerning

2-2- Community visions of language and education

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