Showing papers in "Canadian Journal of Sociology in 2020"

Conjugal Love from a Sociological Perspective: Theorizing from Observed Practices.

Abstract: This paper presents a sociological reflection on contemporary conjugal love, both from an empirical and a theoretical point of view. Drawing on analyses of data regarding financial arrangements between partners forming a couple, as well as on the sociological literature concerning love relationships, we present a theorization of contemporary conjugal semantics. We define these semantics as consisting of eight “meaning rules” through which social actors respond to the challenges of intimate relationships. Our analysis shows us the gaps and the tensions between different logics of love, on the one hand, and logics of love and social realities, on the other. However, partners’ utterances feature an integration of elements stemming from opposed semantic frameworks; meaning rules fostering mythical idealisation are combined with rules regarding relationship work, therapeutic communication, and the entrepreneurial management of the relationship. This empirical analysis also allows us to tackle a double confusion in the contemporary sociological literature on love and couples.

Disrupting a Canadian Prairie Fantasy and Constructing Racial Otherness: An Analysis of News Media Coverage of Trevis Smith’s Criminal HIV Non-Disclosure Case

Abstract: This paper studies how HIV criminalization is portrayed in the mainstream Canadian press by examining news representations of Trevis Smith. Smith’s case is the most reported case of criminal HIV non-disclosure in Canadian history. Our analysis is based on a corpus of 271 articles written about Smith between 2005 and 2012. Our analysis shows that coverage of Smith’s case is distinct from reportage of other criminal HIV non-disclosure cases because he was a well-known Black athlete playing for the Saskatchewan Roughriders at the time of his criminal charge. We argue that news articles represent Smith as a particular kind of threatening racialized “other” through forms of writing that link crime reporting with sports reporting. Our analysis of headlines and quotation patterns emphasizes how news articles construct Smith as a blameworthy outsider and produce Canada as an imagined white settler nation.

Parental Leave and Intra-Regime Differences in a Liberal Country: the Case of Four Canadian Provinces

Abstract: This paper compares access to parental leave benefits in the four largest Canadian provinces –Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia between 2000 and 2016, using quantitative data from the Employment Insurance Coverage Survey. We show that inequalities in the receipt of benefits mirror and reinforce the structure of income and gender inequalities. We argue that Alberta and Quebec represent two regimes of parental benefits. In Alberta the take-up of parental benefits is low, and is closely related to income and gender. Conversely, the vast majority of mothers and fathers have access to parental benefits in Quebec. We argue that Alberta is closer to a liberal regime of parental benefits, while Quebec is closer to a social-democratic model.

Gender and Academic Promotion to Full Professor in Ontario

Abstract: This is a study of 933 academic promotions from associate to full professor in Ontario, Canada for the period 2010-2014. Publicly available sources provided a bibliometric profile including gender, year of promotion, university, academic discipline, salary, type and number of publications and number of authors for each promotion to full professor. We found a large gender gap in academic promotions favouring men, which is explained mainly by a structural focus on male-dominated academic disciplines. We also found large differences in numbers of publications by academic discipline, which was substantially reduced after considering the number of authors per publication. Business professors were paid substantially more than other professors at the time of promotion. Our study focused on publications, and given this limitation the results should be taken in the context that there are multiple considerations for promotion. Publication quality and impact, grants and patents, were not adjusted for.

Foundations, ENGOs, Clean-Growth Networks and the Integral State

Abstract: ‘Clean-growth’ has been embraced by a professionalized segment of environmentalism as a project that aspires to meet Canada’s international climate commitments while supporting a robust rate of capital accumulation. This study situates clean growth within the network that reaches from Canadian foundations that are major donors, to the clean-growth ENGOs that receive the funds, and to other relevant civil-society, state and capitalist organizations, whose governance boards interlock with those of the foundations or the clean-growth ENGOs. Clean-growth initiatives are embedded within a configuration of facilitative funding and governance relations that include major corporate interests but do not extend to the more critical, transformative segment of Canada’s environmental movement. Funded by foundations and partly governed by corporate executives, clean-growth comprises an aspect of the integral state, working to mobilize popular support and technical expertise for a project of climate (in)action that suits dominant business interests.