Religious Diversity Management and Reasonable Accommodations in Greater Montreal Schools

Debates over the place and role of religion in the public sphere have gained significant relevance in Quebec, especially since 2006 (Lefebvre, 2008). The arrivals of immigrants with religious backgrounds other than Christian, distorted public narratives over minorities’ religious requests and the post 9/11 context contributed to this. As a result, the Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences was created in 2007. Education, together with the field of health, stands as an arena for more potential tensions and more needs for religious accommodation (Zubrzycki, 2012). Framed within a larger comparative project, directed by Solange Lefebvre, on the regulation of religion in four national contexts, and based on a qualitative approach, this presentation analyzes how religious diversity is being managed in the context of schools in Greater Montreal. The inquiry pays special attention to the specific “reasonable accommodations” implemented to respond to religious requests of pupils and teachers –in areas such as personal religious symbols and dressing, dietary prescriptions, religious holidays and sports practice– with the aim of disclosing the effects that the so-called Bouchard-Taylor report has had in such institutional contexts.