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Arthur K. Davis was President of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association in 1975–1976 and in 1995 received the association's Outstanding Contribution award. In Canada, he was particularly known for his article on “Canadian Society and History as Hinterland Versus Metropolis,” originally published in Ossenberg's anthology of 1971. This article was frequently cited from 1972–1994 and was reprinted a number of times. Davis was also known for his articles on Thorstein Veblen, which continue to receive citation. Davis' career merits careful study for at least two reasons. The first is that he was a Ph.D. product of the early Harvard sociology graduate program, which has received much less attention than it deserves from sociological historians (unlike the Chicago School). As such, Davis studied under of Talcott Parsons, Pitirim Sorokin, and Robert K. Merton. The second reason is that Davis' career clearly illustrates the usefulness of Robert W. Friedrichs' distinction between the priestly and prophetic roles that sociologists may fulfill. Davis' career started under the influence of a priestly orientation (as symbolized by his doctoral supervisor Talcott Parsons) and then gravitated to a prophetic stance as influenced by Pitirim Sorokin, Paul M. Sweezy, and, more distantly, by Marx and Veblen. Since this transition took place just when the Cold War was falling, his career reveals some of the pitfalls that await the prophetic sociologist in times that favor security and conservatism rather than activism and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article features Michel Freitag and his theories on contemporary sociology. Contemporary sociology faces many challenges in the understanding and reflective expressive of the transformations that affect societies in the world today. Not that it would lack theoretical models to assume its tasks, but the wide range of phenomena to fall under its scope apparently requires the development of a global perspective which also encompasses specific judgments on the evolution and transformation of things. Michel Freitag was born in Switzerland in 1935. He taught at Université du Québec à Montrél from 1970 to 2000. With the coming of age, so to speak, of the second generation of students trained through Freitag's sociological theory, a research group consolidated itself in the eighties on two grounds: A sociological journal dedicated to theoretical and analytical debates, Sociét&eacute, published since 1987; and a series of monthly seminars, held from 1987 to 1998, under the auspices of Groupe interuniversitaire d'étude de la postmodernité. In the two volumes of Dialectique et sociét&eacute that have been published so far, Michel Freitag presents the main concepts and orientations that help to situate sociology in its historical and normative definitions.

The article focuses on the sociological dimensions of the impact of feminism on Canadian sociology. Counter to the U.S. and Europe, sociology in Canada is still a young discipline. Hiller (1980) proposes a four-step periodization for understanding the development of Canadian sociology: first, a period of European transference, which ends about the time of World War 1. During the second period, which Hiller names the period of environmental adaptation (essentially the 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s) sociology was taught in conjunction with economics and political science as part of an interdisciplinary approach. Hiller names the third period one of disciplinary differentiation and specialization (the late 1950s and the decade of the 1960s). The fourth period of consolidation, sarting in the 1970s, also involved the development of a truly Canadian sociology, stimulated and carried forward both by the Canadianization movement and the women's movement, which largely coincided timewise. In the middle to late 1960s the women's movement in Canada started to become a social force, kickstarted by the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. In 1972, the first session ever on women took place in the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association. It was organized by Marylee Stephenson, with three speakers: Lorna Marsden, Dorothy Smith, and Margrit Eichler.

In this article I focus on four major concerns in Canadian sociological analyses of the labour market: (1) the distribution of employment of varying quality among different groups; (2) aggregate trends in the quality of employment and the incidence of unemployment often associated with globalization and technological change; (3) the effects of the relative dependence of the economy on resource extraction; and (4) various comparisons of Canadian labour market performance with that of Sweden, usually to the disadvantage of the former. I argue that these concerns have generated useful research, to varying degrees, but have tended to produce needlessly pessimistic conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quebec sociology and Quebec society are categorically distinct from other sociologies and countries. Both are “communities,” both have French-speaking majorities, and both exist in Anglo-Saxon environments. As well, Quebec sociology has always been and continues to be obsessed by the national question. Interpretations proposed by sociologists—predominantly French-speaking—of and about the Quebec Question have never been independent of the struggles in which they have taken place. In fact, sociological readings of nationalism in Quebec appear to be a direct consequence of their social position and relationship with political power. Through the prism of sociology, the French-speaking collectivity in Canada has been, successively and simultaneously, characterized through categories of race, ethnic group, society, and nation.[2] This article presents five ways in which sociologists have represented Quebec society. First, the Pioneers: Léon Gérin and Marius Barbeau, or the Quebec “Difference” as a handicap. Second, the characterization of Quebec through race, territory, and soul. Third provides the external perspectives of Miner and Hughes. Fourth will examine the Laval (Quebec) School. Finally, this article will examine Quebec Society as either an ethnic or civic nation. Each theme has been set chronologically in specific periods of Quebec sociology: the Pioneers (Part 1 and 2, before 1940); the institutionalization of academic sociology (Part 3 and 4, 1940–1969); and the “nationalization” and professionalization of sociology (Part 5, 1970 to the present). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.

This article presents the results of a survey administered to discover how much concern there is with teaching sociology at the introductory level in the U.S. and Canadian sociology departments. Findings indicate that sociology departments are grappling with the problem of making beginning sociology a more relevant intellectual experience for students with an ever-growing range of interests and expectations. In the survey, 71.1 percent of the U.S. sociology departments had the conventional one-course format in the 1971-72 academic year while 28.9 percent had some other format. Because sociology is undergoing such rapid growth, the authors wanted to find out the degree to which schools were contemplating change in the future. Some critics feel that sociology departments have failed to adapt their course formats to changing student needs. Baker and Behrens feel this way and state that "it is imperative that we ... respond to the plurality of students' abilities, interests, and expectations." The survey indicates that this pessimism represents a metaphysical pathos and that, in fact, U.S. and Canadian departments of sociology are facing the demand for change. Perhaps the most telling evidence of departments' commitments to deal with changing student needs is in the departmental responses.