Rapport à l’école et aux savoirs scolaires de jeunes d'origine haïtienne en contexte scolaire défavorisé à Montréal
The research explores the relationship with school and with scholastic knowledge of young native Haitians in disadvantage academic context. Considering some contrasting trajectories of students academically successful, vulnerable students, and students who dropout, it examines the processes that contribute to socio-academic achievement among the first group and to less successful outcomes among the latter two groups by exploring the meaning that these youths attach to school and to the act of learning. The research also documents the way this meaning is constructed in the youths’ socio-academic pathways. This approach, based on in-depth biographical interviews, generated explanatory hypotheses regarding a residual variance that remained unexplained by quantitative studies. It also enhances Charlot’s perspective (2001), which has been considered overly student-centred (Thésée, 2003). While the student is at the centre of this approach, his/her relationship with academic knowledge is analyzed by exploring the pathway of academic, family and community-based socialization. It examines these in terms of the perspective of the youths themselves as well as that of parents, teachers and other significant people involved in this trajectory.  The results indicate that these youths’ relationship with school and with academic knowledge appears to be more complex and more critical among students who succeed academically and who recognize the value of school for developing skills, acquiring qualifications and socializing. These students actively engage in their learning. In contrast, students who experience difficulties put greater emphasis on socialization and qualifications and put less effort into their schooling. Their relationship with academic knowledge, similarly to that of youths who drop out of school, is sometimes characterized by a lack of meaning and disengagement. However, beyond these broader tendencies, the youths’ relationship with school and with academic knowledge plays out differently for each youth depending on specific personal, family and social characteristics, the academic knowledge considered, and the way teachers transmit this knowledge. Lastly, the results highlights the student’s role as an actor in this process, as well as the active role played by the main environments in which the student moves. The school is particularly challenged. Students denounce the scriptural scholastic form, perceived monotonous, heavy and rigid. Besides, according to them, some teaching practices do not promote learning (Fabre, 2007; Pépin, 1994). The research also highlights the importance of values, practices and cohesion, of the family. Finally, the research emphasizes the influence of the network of peers and community settings. Learning and succeeding in school emerge as an individual and social challenge that involves collective mobilization.
Relationship with knowledge Academic achievement Social and educational pathways High School students Haitian origin disadvantage academic context