Immigration et intégration(s) : quelles politiques linguistiques pour quels enjeux ? Le cas du module linguistique du parcours d’intégration en Wallonie (Belgique)

Details

Supervisors

Hambye, Philippe

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en linguistique, à finalité spécialisée: Linguistics and its Applications for a Multilingual Society

Abstract

enThe admission and integration of immigrants in Europe have been the subject of much debate over the past twenty years. The perception of the importance of language proficiency for integration has changed considerably over the last century, as has the role that each State should or should not play in this integration process. In Wallonia (Belgium), newcomers (those who have been in the country for less than three years) are required to follow a citizenship trajectory, known as the "parcours d'intégration". This includes a four-hundred hour language course. This study questions the notion of integration as univocal and criticizes the consistency between the aims of the Walloon integration programme and the means implemented by the state to meet these aims. It is based on a series of comprehensive interviews and observations conducted in a French as a Foreign Language teaching structure subsidised under the Walloon integration programme ("Initiative Locale d'Intégration"). The results of the survey show that the rationale behind the Walloon programme is the result of major paradigm shifts in Europe in the concept of integration over the last few years. Far from being a univocal reality, integration involves a multiplicity of levels and widely differing realities that do not entail the same resources to be met. The Walloon integration programme, which is mainly built according to a tooling logic, reveals that in some respects it follows an assimilation logic. As for the means deployed in relation to the aims of the integration programme, they highlight the flaws and inconsistencies of the tooling logic as applied by the State today in the Walloon integration programme.