Note: / There is a growing body of literature dealing with the division of labour between ethnic groups.* The major works in this field are Lord Olivier1s "White Capital and Coloured Labourf,(l) and Gunnar l/tyrdal's "An American Dilemma"(2). The former, published in 1929, described the formal organization of labour in the Union of South Africa on a racial basis; and the latter work, published in 1944, described both formal and informal efforts to effect divisions of labour on a Negro-white basis in the United States of America. [...]

This thesis is presented as a tentative attempt to classify the cities, towns and villages of the Montreal Environs and Eastern Townships Regions and in the light of regional planning principles to verify the adequacy of the resulting regional systems. [...]

This thesis attempts to further the study of women's political participation by examining involvement in the Montreal Citizens Movement from approximately the time of its founding in the early 1970s to just after its achievement of power in 1986. Three approaches--resource mobilization, sexual division of labor and role conflict--are used to analyze critically the individual determinants, structural foundations, and nature of this participation, while a brief historical background provides the context for the movement and for its participants' actions. While authors have studied the MCM's structure and programs in general and have noted women's involvement primarily in its early stage as a social movement, there has been only limited discussion of women's participation. This thesis builds upon the latter by documenting and analyzing the nature of such participation using content analysis, participant observation, and personal interviews.

No description available.

Nineteenth-century Montreal convents are complex, multi-functional buildings. As a form of collective housing, convents provided an alternative urban "space" for women, one in which they were able to realize themselves individually and collectively. This thesis explores the Mother House of the Grey Nuns, typical of Montreal's convents, as a purpose-built environment for women. / The research involves the extensive use of a unique documentary legacy preserved in the archives of the Grey Nuns: the architectural drawings and written accounts of Soeur Saint-Jean-de-la-Croix (1854-1921), in addition to the religious community's annals and period photographs. These documents recorded how the nuns organized their own built environment and permit a reconstruction of the convent's spatial arrangements, one hundred years after the fact. Although this building is monumental and designed by prominent Montreal architect Victor Bourgeau, it is only from exploring the perspectives of the users that we can truly see how large institutions operated. The division of the plans, the massing of the convent and its siting, among other aspects, communicate the nuns' distinct way of life, one that questioned the traditional boundaries of public and private imposed by society in turn-of-the-century Montreal, albeit from a limited position. / The convent is situated within the larger context of nineteenth-century Montreal, especially its hospitals, schools, asylums, and homes. While it shared many of the distinctive architectural features that characterized these building types, the convent also differed from them significantly in its organization. This thesis is intended to enrich our understanding of convents, the place in history of religious communities and the development of women in Quebec.

This descriptive case study was an investigation of the transition to university, with a focus on academic experiences in the first semester of the 1992--93 academic year at a Canadian research university. To guide the study, a conceptual framework of the transition to university was created by combining elements of relevant theoretical models in the counseling and higher education literature. A purposive sample of eight first year students was selected, equally distributed in terms of gender, entry status (high school vs. college), and actual or contemplated program of study (English vs. Physics). Data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews conducted at four points in the academic year. These were supplemented by class schedules, university documents, and classroom visits. Analysis of the interview data was conducted using the NUD·IST software package. / The results of the study suggest that students are strangers, in a strange land during their first semester at university. As they encounter successive sets of academic challenges throughout the semester, they are "learning the ropes" of functioning in this unfamiliar territory. In so doing, students are acquiring the experiential knowledge base that will allow them to survive in university. The results support the study's conceptualization of the transition to university, but also suggest that figure research in this area requires a more fine-grained and comprehensive model of the academic environment as experienced by students. Towards this end, the basic elements of an ecological perspective on the academic world of university students are presented. Areas of needed research related to the academic transition experiences of first year students are identified, and recommendations are made for improving orientation and academic advising, as well as course design and instructional practices.

Despite discrimination in mainstream Canadian society, local Muslim communities are a significant resource for immigrants. Recruited by friendship and kin networks, some families chose to educate their children in private full-time Muslim schools which provide academic/economic credentials and social support. Through participant observation and semi-structured interviews, this research depicts a Muslim school in Montreal which both reflects Quebec society and nurtures minority ethnic/religious identity. For many parents, Arabic language classes, academic standards, and behavioral norms were as important as the school's religious affiliation. Rejecting the hypothesis that emphasizing religious and cultural identities distanced children from mainstream society, some felt that the psychological and social effects of affirming a child's background were vital to integration and participation in mainstream society. In addition, the school also provided entry into social networks which offered parents an important support system.

No description available.

This thesis examines how cultural understandings are generated and transmitted in a Canadian multicultural teaching hospital. It explores how issues of 'culture' are addressed formally and informally in the experiences of patients and practitioners. Using the approach of an institutional ethnography, emphasis is placed upon informal strategies of cultural care as a taken-for-granted practice in clinical life. It illuminates how pressure to learn culturally sensitive care seeps into the fabric of daily clinical life, and how cultural practices are constructed within a complex set of organized social practices. / The study concludes that advocacy of multicultural policies, must consider the dominance of existing western health care paradigms. It advocates culturally responsive care as a parallel force that can collaborate with the regimes of formal health practices. It argues that providing effective health care to all segments of Canadian society requires structural changes in health education which need to address existing disjunctures between 'effective ideals' and ideological knowledge, in order that all are ensured optimum health care.

This is a study of a Latin American community centre in Montreal based on two years of participant observation. The Centre is one of many locales where immigrants spend their time and come to understand a new city, its history, people, and institutional systems. As such, it is a place where social identity is actively negotiated and frequently reinvented, highlighting the constructed and dynamic qualities of ethnicity in contemporary Western society. The study dialectically considers small- and large-scale influences on the Centre and its members. While structural limits often foster social marginalization which must be recognized and addressed, cultural production and the negotiation of identity occur primarily through the subtle and minute lifeworld experiences that are found in the everyday lives at the Centre.