Religious expression in public schools: Kirpans in Canada, hijab in France

Public schools provide a microcosm of how states grapple with the challenges posed by the immigration of persons of diverse nationalities, races and, especially, religions. This article examines how two separate challenges involving sartorial religious expression in the schools unfolded and were ultimately resolved: (1) the wearing of the kirpan, or ceremonial dagger, by Sikh students in Canada and (2) the wearing of Islamic headscarves or hijab by schoolgirls in France. Why was a seemingly dangerous weapon ultimately condoned in Canada with relatively little controversy in 1990, whereas innocuous headscarves engendered much furore in France in 1989 and again in 1994? I argue that the answer to this puzzle lies in political culture, more specifically in the national models governing the reception of immigrants and in the existence of institutions and regimes to process human rights claims. National context also influenced the extent to which the religious minorities themselves were able to argue their cases. This argument is supported by the management of a hijab affair in Montreal in 1994-95, revealing Quebecois political culture as falling somewhere between those of (English-) Canada and France.