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This section introduces the articles featured in the spring 2002 issue of The American Sociologist. The half-dozen articles here, along with Brym's engaging introductory essay, help us regain a sense of sociology as an unfolding international movement and also of the distinctive experiences of sociologists in particular national contexts. Rather ironically, in light of the sweep of the paradigms and macro-level theories that are sociology's coin of the realm, there are strong parochial tendencies in the field. In the United States, for instance, many departments of sociology tend to relegate international and cross-cultural matters to anthropologists, and many textbook writers produce analyses that focus overwhelmingly on their home country. One consequence of such tendencies is to speak as though formulas that fit one context have a general or universal applicability. As the papers here inform us time and again, sociology in Canada has struggled with the Anglo-French division of society and culture, which has generated two separate and largely unengaged spheres, and has segregated even the respective social sciences. Meanwhile, Canadian sociologists have worked to develop a voice of their own that is not distorted by the influence of sociology produced in the United States or in Europe.

The article focuses on the sociological research opportunities that can be found in Canada. The Canadian case offers a veritable cornucopia of research opportunities for the American sociologist. Although Canada is similar in many ways to the U.S., it also differs in significant respects. Given that many important variables can be held more or less constant, opportunities for theoretically meaningful research abound. Likewise, implications for policy are plentiful. The rapidly evolving nature of race relations in Canada might well inform discussions in the U.S. Until as late as 1975, Canada's racial minorities were a minuscule proportion of the overall population. After a change in immigration policy, the percentage reached 6.3 percent in 1986; and 11.2 percent in 1996. In the Canadian census, as well as in standard academic discussions, aboriginals are not included with visible minorities. While there is variation in the situation of visible minorities--some are quite prosperous--the situation vis-a-vis aboriginals is otherwise. The figures on poverty, unemployment, life expectancy, incarceration, murder, and so forth are extreme and show only modest signs of improvement. Canada has always been bilingual. Canada is also a bi-religious country. It used to be that Protestants outnumbered Catholics in a pattern somewhat similar to that in the U.S.

This article presents a commentary on a paper by Robert A. Stebbins in a previous issue of The American Sociologist which provided an account of professional and amateur sociology in the U.S. The British organization, Mass Observation existed in a relatively nonintrusive society with (as compared to the U.S.) greater concern for one's own and other people's privacy. Canada and Great Britain may in this respect have more built-in defenses against the risks of some kinds of amateur sociology that the U.S. would have. However, according to the commenter, Stebbins already anticipates this objection by requiring amateurs to be supervised and to start with a certain amount of instruction and proper cautionary comments. By engaging primarily in the use of unobtrusive measures and observations, the amateur will avoid the risks of harm to which Stebbins is already sensitive. The commenter relates that one of the public areas in which he has encouraged such unobtrusive observations is in churches, where the observer in outward appearance is similar to the congregation and hence not seen as an intruder. According to him, he has had a fair amount of experience with undergraduate amateurs of the sort described.