Les parcours d’orientation linguistique postsecondaire et professionnelle :l’expérience de jeunes adultes issus de l’immigration à Montréal

This study explores the negotiation work undertaken by young adults from immigrant backgrounds in Montreal with respect to the construction of their linguistic post-secondary and professional career paths. In the scientific literature, their transition process to postsecondary education and the labor market experience has been problematized mainly with regard to graduation rates and employment access within international and Canadian contexts. The interpretive angle of this thesis brings out the specificity of this experience in the socio-historical context of Quebec. Based on the biographical and retrospective life-story method, the qualitative corpus is comprised of 25 young adults from immigrant backgrounds who, following their secondary education in the French sector, pursued postsecondary studies (CEGEP/university) in a Montreal institution (English/French), and who have two years of experience in the Montreal labor market. The comparison of the testimonies of these young adults makes an in depth exploration of the complexity of their orientation experiences possible, which is complementary to existing quantitative research on this topic. Given that 21 of these young adults belong to different visible minority groups, the results of this thesis shed light on the particularities of the postsecondary and professional pathways of visible minorities from immigrant backgrounds. Inspired by comprehensive sociology, the analytical framework of the thesis accounts for the back-and-forth dynamics between micro and macro sociological dimensions, operated by the social actor. A relational conceptualization of social experience makes it possible to introduce the notion of boundaries, more specifically of «majority/minority» boundaries, in the analysis of the postsecondary and professional orientation experience. The nonlinear conceptualization of life pathways makes it possible to take into account the bifurcations and the constitutive reorientations of these pathways. On the empirical and theoretical levels, this thesis contributes to the development of the role of «majority/minority» boundaries and, more specifically, to the role of power relations in the postsecondary and professional linguistic orientation processes of young adults of immigrant origin, especially those who are visible minorities. In fact, by examining the orientation pathways from a «majority/minority» boundary negotiation angle, the results show that relationships of discrimination and exclusion influence the postsecondary and professional orientation choices of these young adults from immigrant backgrounds. Many of these young adults, distance themselves from French-speaking postsecondary and work environments and choose to integrate themselves into English-speaking environments in the face of experiences of particular forms of discrimination, such as racism, linguism and religious intolerance. The results highlight the vulnerability of certain visible minority groups, such as Blacks and Arabs, who experience more discriminatory behavior through which they feel excluded from the Quebecois majority group: these young adults, mainly Francophone, prefer to work in English-speaking environments. The thesis thus shows that the power relation that govern the social relationships in Quebec society reinforce ethno-cultural boundaries between Francophone Quebecois and young adults of immigrant origin, regardless of whether they have had a relatively successful transition to postsecondary education and the labor market.

Keyphrases: Postsecondary and professional pathways, «Majority/minority» boundaries, Experiences of discrimination, Power relations, Sense of exclusion/inclusion, Young adults of immigrant background, Visible minorities