Is French Immersion a Special Education Loophole? … And Does It Intensify Issues of Accessibility and Exclusion?

Overview & Synopsis

What happens when children are asked to give up their right to special education in order to access a French immersion program? By examining one mother's efforts to secure gifted support in a French immersion program, this critical inquiry offers a parental perspective of the special education issues of accessibility and inclusion. The two children at the center of Beatrice's narrative, Julie and Liz, initially received attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) and attention deficit disorder (ADD) diagnoses and were subsequently identified with a gifted exceptionality. After outlining Beatrice's interlocking challenges with special education identification and support in French immersion, key themes are discussed along with their related implications for research, policy, and practice. In Beatrice's experience, a bilingual program proved to be a loophole, where one's legal right to access gifted special education support was circumvented. While the author focuses on a Canadian French immersion setting, the findings outlined in this paper have larger implications for bilingual programs around the world, such as dual language education programs.