POSITION AND STATUS IN A QUEBEC INDUSTRIAL TOWN.

This paper deals with a formerly quiet French-Canadian country town, now transformed into one of the leading Canadian centres of textile manufacture. Specifically, it describes the present competitive position of various classes in the town and relate the relevant facts to traditional life-objectives and expectations. Since but one case is presented, the treatment cannot be considered comparative in the full sense. A similar analysis could be made profitably in any community undergoing this type of change. The paper makes explicit use of the concept of position and implicit reference to the concept of status. Position is an individual's place in a competitive system. Status is an attribute of a person in society. Subjectively, it consists of his own definition of his place within a system of recognized duties and privileges; objectively, it is the recognition that the person occupies in fact, such a place. In a well integrated system of life, status and position tend to correspond. Each type of position in the existing competitive system would, in the logically ideal case, be defined as a status.