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Prior to the COVID–19 outbreak, food insecurity was already a serious public health problem in Canada, impacting 12.7 percent of households. In recent years, activists, practitioners and researchers from a range of health–related disciplines, have debated the legitimacy of food banks and other charitable food programs, contending that policy and programs at the federal level must be prioritized to address the underlying root causes of poverty. This paper challenges the discourse that charitable food programs prevent or distract from Canada's social equity goals. Alternatively, this paper argues that programs and initiatives at the local level can emerge to bring short–term stability and self–sufficiency to local communities while also advocating for longer–term structural change. Drawing upon structuration theory and critical ecologies of anti–Black racism, we examine the work of BlackFoodToronto, a food sovereignty initiative, to illustrate the negotiation of power and agency, and how groups and networks react to and reshape confining and enabling structures through collaborative practice. In addressing Canada's food security crisis, this paper offers an alternative perspective of community–based, nonprofit and charitable programs, which in practice, can help inform future food security policy and related health equity and community development strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In January 2017, the 'abortion pill' was finally used legally in Canada. This paper provides a sociotechnical analysis of the controversy surrounding RU486 in Canada, focusing on its entry into public discourse, 1990-1995. The case study draws primarily on statements made about the pill, both in Canadian media and in various actors' print communications. Using approaches from science and technology studies, the analysis identifies the multiple human and nonhuman actors, their discursive mobilizations of RU486 and each other, and their contingent alliances, illustrating how RU486 mediates and shapes the communication that attempts to define it. Unpacking the network's complexity illuminates how these sense-making practices established the early setting of the technology's path, a first step in understanding why Canada has been a laggard in making the pill available. The discussion illustrates the tensions, instabilities, and reversals in the network that have hindered RU486's movement from development to diffusion. Finally, the paper suggests a framework for future sociological research on controversial reproductive technologies in their shift from discursive to material diffusion, one that recognises the integral role of women as users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since McCallum's (1995) finding of surprisingly high border effects on trade between the US and Canada, there have been a number of studies on other parts of the world, and improvements made to the gravity model to measure this effect accurately. This paper suggests some other modifications to the model, and applies it to a region of the world that presents a distinctly interesting case. Changes in border effects of formerly socialist countries in Central and East Europe, and countries in the former Soviet Union are analyzed during 1976-2002 at country and sectoral levels, and also with respect to blocs of countries. A discussion on cross-country variations in border effects follows the computations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decades, public health has increasingly addressed what has been called the children's obesity 'epidemic', most notably through large-scale initiatives promoting physical activity. Through a discourse analysis the current paper critically examines such efforts in Canadian and Australian public health. Public health websites in Canada and Australia were examined for information concerning children's health, physical activity and obesity and explored for how these issues were represented in the discourse. Bacchi's (2009) 'What's the problem represented to be?' approach to discourse analysis guided our interrogation of the taken-for-granted assumptions underlying Canadian and Australian public health discourse, the ideological and political influences involved in its construction, and the knowledge base upon which it rests. The article calls for critical reflection on how children's physical and leisure activities are being advanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Petrov A. N. Redrawing the margin: re-examining regional multichotomies and conditions of marginality in Canada, Russia and their Northern Frontiers, Regional Studies. This paper pursues four objectives: to conceptualize and identify organizational logics of space-economy and dimensions of regional differentiation; to identify regional conditions of marginality and group regions along the core–periphery–margin continuum; to examine regional differences within the Norths; and to compare marginal regions in the Canadian versus Russian North. The analysis is based on the multichotomic view of core–periphery–margin relationships that rests on multiscalar, multiscale, and multicentre interpretation of regional polarities. The regional structures of Canada and Russia are ‘remapped’ and it is shown that a great degree of resemblance is shared. The contemporary North is an economically marginalized and fractured, but also a strikingly similar, space. Petrov A. N. Redessiner les limites: réexaminer les multichotomies régionales et les conditions de la marginalité au Canada, en Russie et à leurs frontières septentrionales, Regional Studies. Cet article poursuit quatre objecifs: conceptualiser et identifier la logique organisationnelle de l'espace-économie et l'importance de la différenciation régionale; identifier les conditions de la marginalité et regrouper les régions le long du continuum centre–périphérie-limites; examiner les écarts régionaux au sein des zones septentrionales; et comparer les régions marginales des zones septentrionales canadiennes à celles des zones septentrionales russes. L'analyse est fondée sur le point de vue multichotomique des raports centre–périphérie-limites et qui dépend d'une interprétation de la polarsiation régionale à scalaires, à échelles et à centres multiples. On ‘refait’ la carte des structures régionales canadiennes et russes, et on montre qu'il existe un degré de similarité. La zone septentrionale contemporaine s'avère un espace économiquement marginalisé et fissuré, mais à la fois remarquablement similaire. Structure régionale?Périphérie?Russie?Canada?Forces de la différenciation régionale Petrov A. N. Neudefinition des Randes: eine erneute Überprüfung der regionalen Gegensätze und der Bedingungen der Marginalität in Kanada, Russland und deren nördlichen Grenzen, Regional Studies. Mit diesem Beitrag werden vier Ziele verfolgt: eine Konzeptualisierung und Identifizierung der organisationellen Logik der Raumwirtschaft und der Dimensionen der regionalen Differenzierung, eine Identifizierung der regionalen Bedingungen der Marginalität und Gruppierung der Regionen entlang dem Kontinuum Kern–Peripherie-Rand, eine Untersuchung der regionalen Unterschiede zwischen den nördlichen Regionen und ein Vergleich der marginalen Regionen im Norden Kanadas und Russlands. Die Analyse basiert auf einer gegensätzlichen Sicht der Beziehungen zwischen Kern, Peripherie und Rand, die auf einer multiskalaren bzw. auf mehreren Maßstäben und Zentren gründenden Interpretation der regionalen Polaritäten aufbaut. Die regionalen Strukturen in Kanada und Russland werden neu kartiert, wobei sich zahlreiche Ähnlichkeiten herausstellen. Der moderne Norden ist ein wirtschaftlich marginalisierter und frakturierter, aber auch überraschend ähnlicher Raum. Regionalstruktur?Peripherie?Russland?Kanada?Kräfte der regionalen Differenzierung Petrov A. N. Nueva definición de margen: un reexamen de las multicotomías regionales y las condiciones de marginalidad en Canadá, Rusia y las fronteras norteñas, Regional Studies. En este artículo perseguimos cuatro objetivos: conceptualizar e identificar las lógicas organizativas de la economía espacial y las dimensiones de la diferenciación regional; identificar las condiciones regionales de marginalidad y agrupar las regiones a lo largo de la secuencia de centro, periferia y margen; examinar las diferencias entre las regiones norteñas; y comparar las regiones marginales al norte de Canadá en comparación con el norte de Rusia. Este análisis se basa en la perspectiva multicotómica de las relaciones entre el centro, la periferia y el margen que se basa en la interpretación multiescalar, de varias escalas, y multicéntrica de las polaridades regionales. Tras reexaminar las estructuras regionales de Canadá y Rusia, se observa que comparten muchas características similares. El norte contemporáneo es una región con una economía marginalizada y fracturada pero también un espacio sorprendentemente similar. Estructura regional?Periferia?Rusia?Canadá?Fuerzas de diferenciación regional [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper I critically reflect on “Overstepping the Bounds,” an essay I wrote for the Journal of Bisexuality in 2003 (Volume 3, Number 2, 2003). I conclude that, while much has changed in my own life and the wider world over the last decade, there is still work to be done at the intersection of bisexuality, gender and sociology. I consider, in this regard, the impact of same-sex marriage in Canada, the legal struggle over polygamy, and the rise of transgender, queer and intersex politics. I also ponder the concept of bisexual identity in the (post)modern-day context. While a greater awareness of non-heterosexual relationships has had a positive effect, some queer people are deemed more acceptable than others. Bisexuals continue to occupy marginalized positions and misperceptions about bisexuality thrive. I am disappointed by this lack of progress but wonder if the terminology is outmoded. Perhaps a better indicator would be number of people who embrace “queer” and “questioning,” or rejecting labels altogether. I end by reviewing the texts I investigated in the original essay for information pertaining to bisexuality. I still believe that bisexuality is about choice and, as such, has the power to denaturalize and destabilize categorization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Public--private partnerships (P3s) with the for-profit private sector are increasingly used in Canada to deliver public infrastructure and support services within the health care sector (e.g., hospitals, clinics, community health centres). This paper examines the emergence and legacy of P3s in the Canadian health care sector, classifying them as a form of neoliberal accumulation by dispossession and discussing their inability to live up to proponents' promises. Economic and social costs are examined, and examples are drawn from operational P3 hospitals in Canada. The article also briefly examines how P3s have been affected by the recent global financial crisis, arguing that despite serious problems with the private finance component of these projects, ultimately the policy is poised to weather the storm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite recent critiques of contemporary obesity discourses that link 'modern Western lifestyles' to an 'obesity epidemic', the population's weight remains a central concern of current dietary guidelines. Food choices that are considered beneficial to maintaining a certain weight are understood to play a key role in one's health. This concern reflects medico-moral assumptions about the properties of food and what people should eat. However, the impact of obesity discourses on different individuals and social groups is rarely considered, although there is some evidence that people do generate, reflect and resist the norms and standards set for them, including those that relate to food/weight. In this paper, we will examine the perspectives on fatness and food choice amongst Black and White women and men living in Vancouver and Halifax, Canada. With this examination, we will challenge conventional assumptions about the singular 'modern Western lifestyle' that leads to obesity concerns by teasing out some of the social, cultural and political contexts within which people conceptualise issues regarding weight and make their food choices. By examining the experiences of both women and men we will also provide important insights into the gendered ways in which people engage with obesity discourses and the injunction to 'eat healthily' as a form of weight management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the barriers encountered in undertaking an oral history project with survivors of a total institution for ‘mental defectives’ in the province of Alberta, Canada. Powerful social actors were able to bar access to survivors through legal guardianship orders, and to make access to the institution and its grounds and to publicly archived materials quite prohibitive to the researcher. In addition to overt efforts on the part of powerful social actors to block the project, concerns about the potential to discredit survivor narratives led to changes in the research design. Specifically, research and literature about the ‘acquiescence’ of intellectuals with intellectual impairments led the researcher to broaden the sources for this history as a preemptive strategy. Despite these barriers, survivors of the institution provided a rich and powerful testimony to the brutality of institutionalization, and provide us with an emancipatory history from the perspectives of those most oppressed by disability policies and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the influence of social class, occupational experiences, and a variety of stratification factors on the ranking of a set of important life goals. Based on a national sample of Canadians from 1977, the findings indicate modest class differences in the evaluation of four "self-actualization" values. Specifically, middle class respondents rank "self-development," "achievement," and "activism" as more important than do working class respondents. There are no significant differences on the fourth concern, "independence." Multi-variate analysis reveals that the class differences in values are wholly attributable to differences in occupational experiences and educational training in the two class groupings. These findings are consistent with Kohn's thesis of "class and conformity." Additional controls on a set of stratification factors—sex, income, age, and language group (English/French)—suggest almost no differences between dominant and subordinate groups in the ranking of the four values. Only age has a significant influence, with the young rating self-actualization as more important than the old. The implications of these results for the study of dominant values and ideology and for the relationship between social inequality and values are briefly considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various issues related to the social organization of Canadian sociology. To provide a meaningful portrait of Canadian sociology is a complex task. What is needed in any complex situation, of course, is some "criterion of relevance," which serves to direct attention to a limited and manageable number of factors. The types of the substantive knowledge generated by sociologists practicing in Canada constitute the selective principles to focus attention on the distinctive features of Canadian sociology. In recent years Canadian nationalism has become a pervasive feature of all institutional spheres of Canada. In the universities, nationalistic sentiments have led to the expansion of graduate programs and the development of policies designed to insure that Canadian academic departments would be staffed primarily with Canadian-trained personnel in the future. For sociology these developments have resulted in an increase in the number of graduate programs in sociology and the number of graduate students undergoing training in Canada.

Previous literature has applied system-focused structures to understand the success of First Nations Peoples' nutrition and exercise group programmes. Existing system-focused measures have included biomedical outcomes, access and service utilization. By broadening the focus of programme success beyond the system, we can evaluate programmes from a First Nations Peoples' lifeworld perspective. Critical hermeneutics and yarning using a lens of Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action to the literature has the potential to transform understandings of "success" in First Nations Peoples' nutrition and exercise group programmes. In this literature interpretation, we explored the critical success factors from a lifeworld perspective, giving scope to go beyond a system perspective to include a cultural, social or personal perspective. Our yarning led us to understand that there is a communicative relationship between explicit system structures and implicit lifeworld concepts that are critical success factors for First Nations nutrition and exercise group programmes. We have developed a set of reflective questions to guide others in considering a lifeworld perspective. Our findings represent a shift away from success measured by the dominant power structure to respect the lifeworld culture, knowledges and values of First Nations Peoples towards shared understanding and mutual decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Risk is a quotidian concept in public health, but there is little research on how 'health risk' is corporally experienced. In this article we apply sociological theories to analyse how a sample of 13 individuals made sense of embodied health risk. The data were collected through the adults sculpting, life-lining, and participating in interviews in Toronto, Canada in Autumn 2016. Through these activities we explored how participants related their embodied futures to their presents and pasts. Four approaches to how 'health risk' connects the body through time emerged from our analysis, focusing particularly on the interview data: the shit happens approach, the sequelae approach, the risk as heuristic approach, and the knowledge approach. These approaches elucidate how individuals make uncertain embodied futures stable through the different interpretations of the concept of risk. Our account of these four approaches builds on recent health risk research by providing individual, embodied accounts of risk that show how understandings of health risk connect individuals to broader systems. The four approaches have implications for considering pathways to achieving health justice, developing public health ethics, and understanding the role embodied risk plays in individual experiences of unequal health structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working from an asset-based perspective, this exploratory, qualitative study examined local community strengths and capacities to support healthy aging in a rural community in Western Canada. The research team consisted of academic leads and a project coordinator from a Canadian university, collaborating partners from the health authority, representatives from local and regional municipal leadership, and an Advisory Committee comprising local municipal leaders, seniors' advocates, business owners, health care professionals and other community stakeholders. The findings from this study underscore five equally critical and overlapping areas of recommendations: Networking and Cross-Community Collaborations; Communications; Health and Social Care Initiatives; Transportation; and Housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parents, especially mothers, have been increasingly positioned as a central determinant of children's educational outcomes. Analysing articles from a Canadian parenting magazine, this study explores and compares understandings of what it means to be an involved parent in a child's education during two time periods: 1993–1995 and 2013–2015. Findings suggest that involved parenting with respect to children's education is complex and intensive, occurring in both the home and the school. Over time the necessity of parental involvement became more taken-for-granted and the ideal parental role moved from one of providing direct assistance to children to one of creating the right environment for children to take self-responsibility; a shift that involved more emotion management on the part of mothers. These changes are analysed in the context of neoliberal understandings and intensive mothering with attention paid to class and gender implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Creative Practices for People with Cancer is a research team experimenting with the popular arts for purpose of improving survivors' quality of life. Popular expressive art forms (e.g. drumming and mask-making) are assessed for their potential value for cancer survivors via surveyed team members and a "sculpting" session. Two themes, social cohesion and new self-identities, emerged from the team's experimentation with the popular, expressive arts. Our experimentation with the popular arts as embodied forms of self-exploration confirms their potential to counter the dominant ideology of cancer as associated with an inevitability of diminished bodies and attenuated selfhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the status of women scholars who study Canadian foreign policy (CFP)? Our study, the first of its kind to concentrate on the Canadian situation, addresses this question by studying publications and authorship. We assess the status of women in CFP since 1945 using the Canadian Foreign Relations Index, supplemented by studies on women in the academy. We show that the number of publications by women is substantially lower than those of men, and work by women remains underrepresented in the so-called “core” of what is traditionally defined as CFP. Regardless of the nature of the work, women scholars are less represented, and they appear to be disadvantaged by mixed collaborative work. These findings speak to the culture and personality of the discipline. They invite us to revisit assessments of the discipline as “mature” and “robust.” [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Brodeur’s concept of high policing is now a staple in sociology and criminology. While scholars have added to debates about high policing by focusing on private provision and pluralization, methodological concerns related to high policing remain underdeveloped. Here, we examine the use of access to information (ATI) requests as a methodological tool for producing data on high policing. We argue that despite the utility of ATI for social scientists producing data on policing, the information management practices of policing agencies and the laws that enable their surveillance and intelligence practices curtail ATI in ways that we detail with focus on Canadian federal policing and intelligence agencies. In conclusion, we reflect on the implications of our findings for literature on public policing and ATI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we analyze nationally representative data from Canada's General Social Survey to investigate how various indicators of bonding and bridging social capital are associated with economic well-being and how the magnitude of their associations compare with each other. Our findings suggest that several dimensions of bonding social capital, including knowing neighbors well enough to ask favors of them and providing assistance to others, are positively associated with economic well-being. The study's indicators of bridging social capital were also linked to increases in the participants’ economic well-being. When comparing the associations of bonding and bridging social capital we ascertained that bridging social capital in the form of group membership, including Internet group membership and participation in groups, had a more robust association than any of the indicators of bonding social capital. We consider the implications of the study's findings in light of a technologically-advanced yet volatile economy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses on the case study of the Oak Ridges Moraine (ORM) planning issue in Canada. The analysis focuses if how print media play in the outcome of the ORM debate which became an environmental issue. There are avenues of research used in the study, a literature review, a content analysis of the Toronto Star's Oak Ridges coverage, and interviews with people involved. The study shows that, the development industry sees the media as skewed towards an environmental point-of-view.

In Canada, little attention has been paid to the extent to which job outcomes are the result of the human capital honed in university or of broader social dynamics. Combining the fundamental insights of status attainment and cultural reproduction theories with propositions of the college impact model, the current study examines the effects of cultural, social and human capital on four job outcomes two years after graduation from a Canadian university. Overall, it is found that variables measuring cultural and human capital have independent effects on job outcomes; however, the impact of social capital is minimal. The findings suggest that graduates' job outcomes are connected to broader social dynamics as well as to what they might learn in university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Perrucci and Pilisuk community power study of a medium-sized midwestern U.S. city is replicated on a small Prairie Canadian resort town. The interorganizational basis for power, derived from overlapping executive memberships, is the perspective followed in both studies. Essentially the same results are found in both places. A well-defined elite structure exists capable of mobilizing interorganizational power resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the social mobility in Canada. Studies of social mobility in Canada would seem familiar and easily comprehensible to American readers; the basic methodologies and approaches are the same. What differs is the response to distinctive elements and problems within Canadian society and the exploitation of unique research opportunities that Canada presents. For example, studies of the elite are more feasible in a smaller nation since their number is small and manageable, and so swift progress in this area has been made in Canada. Beyond these kinds of differences, a high priority has also been given to the study of social mobility and social stratification. It is in the latter area that one of the first high quality books of readings on a specialized topic was produced. One of the best of the upper year textbooks in Canada deals with social mobility. The reason for this emphasis is not that social stratification or restrictions in mobility are felt to be a greater social problem in Canada; rather it is because a significant minority of Canadian sociologists has had British rather than American training and in Great Britain a high priority has always been given to studies of mobility and stratification. This British tradition is clearly evident in the work of the sociologist John Porter, whose 1965 book "The Vertical Mosaic," quickly became and still remains the dominant work in Canadian sociology.

The general purpose of this article is to investigate the Boards of Governors of eight Ontario universities in order to determine their relationship to the Canadian power structure. More specifically, it is an attempt to determine whether or not the upper echelons of the university represent a meeting ground for what sociologist C.W. Mills terms the "power elite." To understand the members of the boards of governors as a power elite, three key factors, as outlined by Mills must be taken into account: 1) the psychological and social bases for unity; 2) the structure, mechanics and interrelatedness of the major hierarchical institutions; and 3) the explicit recognition by the power elite of the need for formal and informal coordination. Through their common educational backgrounds, similarities in career patterns, philanthropic activities, and membership in exclusive social clubs, there is formed the basis for the "social and psychological unity" among the governors. The university is not an autonomous institution separate from the social, economic and historical forces operating on the "outside" world. In fact the stratification system and power structure of the university mirrors the larger corporate society. The greatest legitimization of this occurs at the apex of the university structure where members of the "power elite" have become the "power elite of education."