The purpose of this study is to explore the adjustment experiences of McGill University graduate students from the People's Republic of China (PRC). Following a qualitative approach to research, interviews were conducted with 10 graduate students from the PRC using semi-structured and open-ended methods. More structured interviews with McGill University administrative staff provided background to the study as did government and university registration statistics. This study explores student involvement and interaction with Canadian society, avenues and barriers to interaction, and communication between professors/supervisors and students. It focuses on the overlapping relationship between communication skills and culture learning as part of how students define adjustment. Students identify the particular challenges in adjusting to Canadian society as becoming more self-reliant and feeling comfortable with uncertainty in their futures. Women students discuss issues of independence and freedom and how these factors sometimes conflict with their traditional social roles. This study also includes some recommendations for further research.

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If urbanization in the North is to emerge beyond the "instant town" or the "frontier town" models, an integrated understanding of what constitutes quality of life in northern settlements is required. In less than ten years Yellowknife has been transformed from a frontier mining town with an uncertain future to a small city whose permanency is not only assured, but which is experiencing rapid population growth and economic diversification. This transformation was spurred by the naming of Yellowknife as the territorial capital, and compounded by developments in global markets for gold and petroleum. To gain this integrated understanding of quality of life, Yellow-knife's disparate social groups and social areas are analyzed. Discrete neighbourhoods are identified by examining housing types and compiling occupational data and house assessments. Less tangible notions of social space, as defined by perceived neighbourhood, social contacts, and place awareness patterns suggest that the town is differentiated cognitively by most residents on the basis of proximity and social networks of internally homogeneous groups. The assessment of quality of life in the city is initially approached deductively through the use of comparative urban indicators, including employment turnover, public order, poverty, income, and cost of living. These statistics however tend to be misleading of variables salient at the level of experience, and problems of data availability, reliability, and geographic scale of presentation may result in erroneous conclusions. An Inductive analysis based on an evaluation by residents themselves of their community and neighbourhood, and the criteria used in their assessment is more useful in the identification of quality of life. Survey data was collected from a representative sample of 221 Yellowknife households. A major finding shows that most Yellowknife residents are satisfied withitheir community. Sets of positive and negative liveability criteria emerge that do not always coincide with those suggested by the urban indicators. Housing, the high cost of northern living, and southern accessibility were perceived as greatest hindrances to community satisfaction; in contrast, residents enjoy the city's setting, pace of life, and the people themselves. Overall satisfaction with their neighbourhood is generally lower for residents and consistently variable among residential areas. Important neighbourhood quality criteria include privacy and views; accessibility factors and newness warranted scant mention by most. Successful neighbourhoods reflect a close correspondance between the residents! perception of the area's existing physical and social amenities and those considered to be ideal. Even in a town as small as Yellowknife, different social groups have varying perceptions of what constitutes an ideal neighbourhood. The observation and interpretation of everyday incidents and experiences in Yellowknife permit,' a third approach to evaluating quality of life. Several typical scenarios suggest the existence of a degree of cosmopolitanism within the pioneer tradition of the independent, self-made man. The city offers its people the residential and cultural diversity of older, larger cities; as such Yellowknife might be viewed as a model for other northern communities. Residents' planning needs, as expressed through attitudes and liveability components, vary internally within the city. Many needs-housing, improved transport links with the South for goods and people, and improved recreation facilities—can be incorporated into future plans, which at the same time should preserve those environmental components presently highly valued. Proposals are discussed that may help solve the problems of housing shortages, the cost, choice, and tenure of mobile home spaces, and changes in the physical and social structure of two neighbourhoods. While high financial outlays by governments may be required to improve quality of life in the North, they should be considered as investments in present and future well-being, without which the social and economic costs may be even higher in the long run. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

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In tracing the experience of Chinese Canadians in the 20th Century, we need to look further back into its history. Most people believe that the increasing number of immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China in the 1980s and 1990s played the most important roles in the social and economic changes during the latest decades of the 20th Century. The contribution of the Chinese Canadians settlement throughout the 20th Century should also be considered as it marks the beginning of the rise of their social status and identity in Canada. Although the Chinese Canadians earned their fame and status since the 1980s, they had been racially discriminated for more than a century. To probe into the situation, the social and political situations in the Chinese Canadian community will be meticulously analyzed and their contribution in difference aspects examined. In addition, other minority ethnic groups, such as the Japanese, Jewish and Indian, will be used as a comparison to demonstrate the change of policies towards the Chinese in Canada. In doing so, both English and Canadian Chinese newspapers will be used to illustrate the cultural difference between the “whites” and “non-whites”. To illustrate the changes, the 20th Century will be break into three parts. In most of the pre-Second World War period, the Chinese community was isolated from the mainstream community with their activities largely confined to Chinatowns in cities, such as Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto and so on. For the Chinese living in small townships, such as Prince Rupert, Richmond and so on, their daily life will also be examined. When Canada declared war on Japan on 7th December 1941, Canada became an ally of China during the war. A sentiment of acceptance of the Chinese in the mainstream society began to take shape. Some of the Chinese chose to contribute their efforts to Canada by joining the Canadian Armed Forces and went into battle alongside the White Canadians. After the Second World War, Canada adopted a new policy towards the minority ethnic groups and Chinese Canadians started to enjoy political equality. In May 1947, the Canadian Government repealed the Chinese Immigration Act. In 1967, after the liberalization of the Canadian immigration policy, the Chinese, once again, were allowed to immigrate freely to Canada as an individual. With granted full citizenship, the Chinese social and political status began to change. In 1957, Douglas Jung, a Canadian born Chinese, was elected a Member of the Parliament, which can be seen as the beginning of the Chinese involvement in the political arena of the Canadian community. Since then, Chinese Canadians were able to achieve equality in the society. Based on documentary accounts and oral history research, this thesis re-constructed the history of Canadian Chinese involvement in the 20th Century and the change of their identity and social status thereafter. / published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The debate over the quality of work has been on-going for a number of years. Recently, non-standard work has figured predominantly in that debate. Some researchers have argued that the rise of non-standard work is evidence of the declining quality of work since it offers few benefits, little job security and lower incomes. Other research has indicated that it is the effect of job characteristics themselves that determine quality of work, whether in standard or non-standard employment. Other researchers have noted that it is the profile of workers in these jobs that is a good indicator of whether the employment is "good" or "bad" since most individuals who are from groups on the periphery of the labour force tend to be in jobs of lesser quality. / This study addresses the quality of work in the Canadian context from 1989 to 1994, by exploring its connection to all three of these theories: the rise of non-standard work, the decline of "good" job characteristics and the changing profile of workers in non-standard work. What was found may be an interesting trend. Non-standard employment is becoming more mainstream and may even be influencing the characteristics of standard employment. The demographic profile of non-standard workers is also beginning to resemble that of standard workers. It could be concluded that the quality of work is indeed shifting. However, it was difficult to determine whether the shifts were indeed long-term or indicative only of difficult economic times in Canada. The issue of job quality is complex and better definitions of quality of work and longer timeframes should be considered in future research, to better understand what was/is happening in the Canadian labour market. If non-standard employment is truly "bad" work and it continues to increase, there will be fundamental implications for the quality of work in Canada.

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As recently as 1995, sweet blood did not resonate broadly as an urgent transnational concern. This thesis chronicles how diabetes mellitus, sweet blood, became recognized as a social problem besetting Canada, among many other countries. / This ethnographic study brings anthropological theories---developed for the most part to analyze the lives of "non-Western" peoples---to bear on "Western" philosophy, science, medicine, mass media, governments, and commerce. Throughout, this thesis challenges received wisdom about disease, technologies, kinship, commodification, embodiment, and personhood. / This thesis argues that a statistical concept, the population, is the linchpin of both politics and economics in large-scale societies. Statistically-fashioned populations, combined with the conviction that the future can be partially controlled, undergird the very definition of diabetes as a disease. In turn, biomedical knowledge about diabetes grounds the understanding of sweet blood as a social problem in need of better management. The political economy of sweet blood shows that, under "Western" eyes, persons can remain intact while their bodies---down to their very cells---divide and multiply, both literally and figuratively. As members of statistically-fashioned populations, human beings have a patent existence and many "statistical doubles." These statistical doppelgangers help shape feelings, actions, identities, and even the length of human lives. They permit countless strangers and "lower" nonhuman beings---among them, mice, flies, and bacteria---to count as kin. Through the generation and use of statistics, people and their body parts undergo valuation and commodification, but are neither bought nor sold. The use of statistics to commodify human beings and body parts, this thesis finds, inevitably anchors biomedical practice, biomedical research, health policies, and the marketing of pharmaceuticals and all other things known to affect health.

Understanding the processes that allow all students to successfully learn mathematics has been an important objective for most education systems including those in Canada. Educational systems however, have not achieved this goal as many students with low socioeconomic status, females, and minority students fail to achieve an adequate knowledge of mathematics. Much of the discussion regarding this lack of achievement concerns classroom resources and practices, school policies within educational systems, and the specific domain of mathematics achievement considered. This study conceptualizes a successful mathematics classroom in terms of its level of mathematics achievement and how equitably achievement is distributed. The study employs multilevel models and the Canadian data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study to address three main research issues: 1) the extent to which differences in mathematics achievement is attributable to gender, family background, classrooms, and the province where a student attends school; 2) whether the variation in achievement is specific to a mathematics domain; and 3) whether the variation among six provinces (Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, and Quebec) in the levels of their mathematics achievement is associated with various aspects of school policy and practices. The analyses indicate a slight male advantage in mathematics achievement, and a large, significant gap in achievement associated with the socioeconomic status (SES) of the students' families. Students from low SES backgrounds are disadvantaged as they tend to have relatively low achievement in mathematics within classrooms, especially in Proportionality, Measurement, and Fractions. The most successful classrooms are those in which students from disadvantaged backgrounds excel in mathematics. Disadvantaged students excel in mathematics classrooms in which there are fewer groupings, the mathematics teachers are specialized, and in schools with lower pupil-teacher ratio. Mathematics achievement is equitably distributed in provinces with high mathematics achievement levels. Provincial achievement levels are stable across mathematics domains; that is, provinces with high achievement levels in one domain also tend to have high achievement levels in other domains. On average, Quebec's mathematics achievement is higher than the other provinces in all mathematics domains, and at all levels of SES. This high achievement level in Quebec is partially attributed to higher teacher specialization, lower pupil-teacher ratio, and lower withinschool remedial tracking. The study recommends a comprehensive longitudinal study employing multilevel models with a focus on what other provinces can learn from Quebec's advantage in mathematics. Such a study should conceptualize successful mathematics classrooms as those in which an average student excels in mathematics and where mathematics achievement is equitably distributed.