Minority Community Development: Testing Landry's (2012) Intergroup Ethno-Linguistic Model

We test Landry's (2012) ethno-linguistic community development model in the context of Canadian Francophone minorities, using two social responses as indicators of social development. These minorities are spread over 12 Canadian Provinces and Territories and represent a broad spectrum of minority levels. The social responses are the offer and the demand for health care services in French and they are derived from Statistics Canada's 2006 Survey on the Vitality of Official-Language Minorities. As predicted by Landry, we observe a strong association between the two social responses and the Francophones/Anglophones linguistic vitality ratio. A phase diagram analysis indicates that minorities have more control over local model dynamics whereas the majority has more control over global model constraints. This suggests practical lessons for fostering the development of minority communities.