The objective of this article is to present and compare the role of community and school milieus through relationships between the historical linguistic communities of Montréal and Brussels. Although these two linguistic contexts differ in many ways, they share two characteristics, which suggest that each of these communities could learn from the experience they developed in parallel – a context of the ambiguity of ethnic dominance and a linguistically divided school system. On the basis of recent research, we will examine the connections in the school and community milieus between French- and English-speaking Montréalers (Pagé et al. 2007, Côté 2005) and between young French-speaking and Dutch-speaking students (Mettewie 2004, Janssens andVanMensel 2006). In conclusion, the impact this intercommunity contact has on representations and attitudes brings out questions which, in examining these two contexts, reveals possibilities for complimentary and comparative research.