Canadian Society: Trends and Perspectives

The purposes of this essay are twofold; first, to look at patterns and trends in the development of Canadian society through advanced industrialization toward what has been called the post-industrial stage; and second, to examine the implications of these trends for the growth of sociology in Canada, and for the emergence of a distinctive Canadian identity. The choice of the movement into and through advanced stages of industrialization as a starting point does not imply an assumption of economic determinism on our part; it reflects the empirical fact that in modern societies, if not in all societies, the economic domain is basic.1