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SummaryThe recent controversy over reasonable accommodation has underscored identity issues in the increasingly multiethnic student population of Montreal schools. While the establishment of good relations between immigrant parents and schools is essential and to be encouraged, it is subject to sociopolitical tensions and represents a sometimes daunting challenge. In this article, the results of parent-teacher focus groups that were organized in two Montreal schools to collect data on these relations are presented. Building on recommendations made by parents and teachers, the article suggests avenues for rethinking interaction between parents and the community as a way of laying the groundwork for mutual understanding.

Keywords: immigration, tensions, relations parents-enseignants, focus groupes, questions d'identité, immigration, tensions, parents-teachers relations, focus groups, identity issues, inmigración, padres, maestros, tensiones, comprensión

In 1965, Norbert Elias and John Scotson published a seminal study on the dynamics of established/outsider relations. Their analysis has been criticized on several grounds, including its relative inattention to space. A number of recent studies have sought to build on Elias and Scotson's model by putting greater emphasis on space. These studies represent important interventions in the development of a relational approach to local established/outsider relations. Nonetheless, such an approach would benefit from further refinement. In particular, an Eliasian approach can be especially valuable to the study of local power relations and identity constructions if it takes into account the overlapping nature of configurations, emphasizes that individuals are simultaneously embedded in a large number of configurations, recognizes that different spatial contexts are not merely external resources to be manipulated by (local) actors, and refuses to treat conflicts that happen to play out in local contexts as purely local phenomena.

Keywords: Established/outsiders, dichotomie Established/outsiders, jeux d’échelle, scale, immigration, immigration, national identity, identité nationale, settler societies, société coloniale, urban/rural divide, dichotomie urbain/rural

In recent years, a significant amount of research has been done on the varieties of spoken French in Western Canada. Much remains to be done, nonetheless, and it is important to continue to collect, describe and analyze data, as we seek to present an accurate portrait of the Francophone communities in Western Canada. This has been the principal objective of this team of six researchers working on the particularities of each variety of Western Canadian French and on each community where the language is spoken. Moving from East to West (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta) and serving as a foundation for further research, this paper offers a descriptive survey of current research activities in the field and suggests ways to reflect on the interpretation of both existing and newly-collected spoken language corpuses. The variety of corpuses presented here allows for further analysis in connection with other large-scale projects (PFC – Le français à la mesure d'un continent), in an effort to enrich our knowledge of the many varieties of French in the Francophone world.

In Tunisia, the 2016 national strategy against terrorism introduced the concept of preventive measures, which legitimized tighter state control over religious discourses and practices. To bring a local perspective to the study of international preventative measures, I build upon the concept of “vernacular security” to examine how Tunisian imams involved in preventing violent extremism (PVE) programs understand security, violent extremism, radicalization, and their role as non-traditional security actors. To achieve this, I observe how imams describe their own experiences of security, in their own words and through their own understandings. Through ethnographic interviews conducted with local imams between 2019 and 2020, this research focuses on the way in which they perceive, re-enact, and influence security practices, with a particular focus on the relationship between religion and security, a central subject in post-revolutionary Tunisia. In so doing, this paper argues that local imams involved in PVE programs reproduce local and global security discourses, while at the same challenging their role in community policing.

Keywords: radicalization, religion, preventing violent extremism, religious leaders, civil society, Tunisia, vernacular security, imams, terrorism

Seventy living historical cities appear on the UNESCO's World Héritage List. Here, each of them is the object of a brief study which situates it in time and space, identifies its major historical milestones as well as originality and describes its essential urban and morphological landmarks. The criteria behind the recognition of these cities, according to the recommendations of the International Council on Monuments and Sites to the UNESCO's World Heritage Council, are also presented.

Keywords: Histoire urbaine, morphologie urbaine, patrimoine, Urban history, urban morphology, World Heritage