MINORITY STATUS AND SCHOOLING IN CANADA

To what extent can we account for the educational achievement data of minority francophone, aboriginal, and African Canadian students using Ogbu's (1978, 1992) distinction between voluntary and involuntary mino rities? While Ogbu's distinction is useful in highlighting the impact of status and power relations on student achievement, a more flexible and inclusive framework is needed to account for the variability of ac ademic outcomes and to plan educational interventions that will challe nge the way school failure is constructed. Academic growth among subor dinated-group students will result only from educator-student interact ions that actively promote collaborative relations of power and contes t the still pervasive influence of coercive relations of power.