Department of Sociology
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Browsing Department of Sociology by Subject "Canada"
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Item 2021 Canadian federal election, election report: Facebook use by political parties(2022) Boulianne, Shelley; Stevens, Leanne; Mullin, Samantha; Rondeau, Caroline; El-hakim, Yaseen; Johal, Sunpreet; Mamo, NatalieWe coded Facebook posts from a four-week period beginning August 23, 2021 and ending September 20, 2021. A team of six coders were trained using a codebook that includes more than 300 variables. This report covers a handful of the variables. Coders were given a Facebook link, which they opened in one window. Then in another window, they went through an online questionnaire hosted by SoSciSurvey.Item “Alignment-Plus”: alignment with schooling requirements and cultural-bridging among indigenous middle-class parents(2019) Milne, Emily; Wotherspoon, TerryEducation research demonstrates that positive and trusting family/school relationships support academic achievement but for many Indigenous parents in Canada legacies of residential schooling have made it difficult to develop strong bonds with schools and teachers. Drawing on interviews with 69 Indigenous parents and eight non-Indigenous parents of children who identify as Indigenous from two Canadian provinces, this study explores the intersection between family/school relationships and social class, and highlights distinct ways that middle-class Indigenous parents are involved in schooling. Shifting from a “deficit” approach to a “strength based” approach highlights existing resources and capacities among those who are comfortable and familiar with navigating the education system while also creating prospects to build on that capacity to empower others who are less familiar/comfortable.Item Citizen panels and opinion polls: convergence and divergence in policy preferences(2018) Boulianne, Shelley; Loptson, Kristjana; Kahane, DavidCitizen panels offer an alternative venue for gathering input into the policy-making process. These deliberative exercises are intended to produce more thoughtful and informed inputs into the policymaking process, compared to public opinion polls. This paper highlights a six day deliberative event about energy and climate issues, tracking opinion changes before and after the deliberation, as well as six months after the deliberation. In two of the five policy domains, opinions change as a result of the deliberation and these changes endure six months after the deliberation. The tracking of opinions across the three points in time reveals a pattern of convergence between panelists’ views and poll results for three of the five policy domains. Panelists were overly optimistic about many of the policy options prior to deliberation, but became more critical of these policies post-deliberation, moving their opinions closer to those of poll respondents.Item Complicating the resilience model: a four-country study about misinformation(2022) Boulianne, Shelley; Tenove, Chris; Buffie, JordanThe resilience model to disinformation (Humprecht et al., 2020, 2021) suggests that countries will differ in exposure and reactions to disinformation due to their distinct media, economic, and political environments. In this model, higher media trust and the use of public service broadcasters are expected to build resilience to disinformation, while social media use and political polarization undermine resilience. To further test and develop the resilience model, we draw on a four-country (the US, Canada, the UK, and France) survey conducted in February 2021. We focus on three individual-level indicators of a lack of resilience: awareness of, exposure to, and sharing of misinformation. We find that social media use is associated with higher levels of all three measures, which is consistent with the resilience model. Social media use decreases resilience to misinformation. Contrary to the expectations of the resilience model, trust in national news media does not build resilience. Finally, we consider the use of public broadcasting media (BBC, France Télévisions, and CBC). The use of these sources does not build resilience in the short term. Moving forward, we suggest that awareness of, exposure to, and reactions to misinformation are best understood in terms of social media use and left–right ideology. Furthermore, instead of focusing on the US as the exceptional case of low resilience, we should consider the UK as the exceptional case of high resilience to misinformation. Finally, we identify potential avenues to further develop frameworks to understand and measure resilience to misinformation.Item Complicating the resilience model: a four‐country study about misinformation(2022) Boulianne, Shelley; Tenove, Chris; Buffie, JordanThe resilience model to disinformation (Humprecht et al., 2020, 2021) suggests that countries will differ in exposure and reactions to disinformation due to their distinct media, economic, and political environments. In this model, higher media trust and the use of public service broadcasters are expected to build resilience to disinformation, while social media use and political polarization undermine resilience. To further test and develop the resilience model, we draw on a four-country (the US, Canada, the UK, and France) survey conducted in February 2021. We focus on three individual-level indicators of a lack of resilience: awareness of, exposure to, and sharing of misinformation. We find that social media use is associated with higher levels of all three measures, which is consistent with the resilience model. Social media use decreases resilience to misinformation. Contrary to the expectations of the resilience model, trust in national news media does not build resilience. Finally, we consider the use of public broadcasting media (BBC, France Télévisions, and CBC). The use of these sources does not build resilience in the short term. Moving forward, we suggest that awareness of, exposure to, and reactions to misinformation are best understood in terms of social media use and left–right ideology. Furthermore, instead of focusing on the US as the exceptional case of low resilience, we should consider the UK as the exceptional case of high resilience to misinformation. Finally, we identify potential avenues to further develop frameworks to understand and measure resilience to misinformation.Item Countering radicalization to violent extremism: a comparative study of Canada, the UK and South East Asia(2020) Alati, DanielRecent high-profile terrorist events in Canada, the United Kingdom and Europe – the London Bridge attacks, the terrorist attacks in Nice, France and Barcelona, Spain, the 2014 Ottawa Parliament attacks and the 2017 attacks in Edmonton – have all raised levels of public and academic concern with so-called “lone-wolf” and “radicalized” terrorism. Similarly, several countries outside of the “Western” world have been dealing with radicalization to violent extremism for several years. Many South East Asian countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines have all had experience with what might be described as ISIS or extremist-inspired acts of terrorism. Indeed, it appears the greatest strength of groups such as ISIS has been their ability to spread a global message of violent extremism that has led to radicalization in markedly different jurisdictions throughout the world. These markedly different jurisdictions have responded with counter-radicalization strategies that warrant further comparative analysis. This paper utilizes an inter-disciplinary legal methodology. In doing so, it compares legal, political, cultural and historical aspects of the counter-radicalization strategies employed by Canada, the United Kingdom and several South East Asian countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines). Whilst acknowledging significant legal and political differences between these jurisdictions, the paper engages in these analyses with an eye towards understanding which best practices might be shared between the jurisdictions. In doing so, it presents valuable findings of a comparative nature that are useful to both academic and practitioner audiences in several jurisdictions.Item Élection fédérale Canadienne 2021, rapport electoral: l'utilisation de Facebook par les parti politiques(2022) Boulianne, Shelley; Stevens, Leanne; Mullin, Samantha; Rondeau, Caroline; El-hakim, Yaseen; Johal, Sunpreet; Mamo, NatalieNous avons codés les publications Facebook durant une période de quatre semaines, débutant le 23 Août et finissant le 20 Septembre 2021. Une équipe de six codeurs ont été entrainés pour utiliser le livre-code qui contient plus de 300 variables. Ce rapport électoral couvre certaines des variables retrouvées dans le livre-code. Les codeurs ont reçu le lien à une publication Facebook, qu’ils ouvraient dans une fenêtre. Dans une autre fenêtre, ils ont rempli le questionnaire en ligne administré par SoSciSurvey.Item Engagement with candidate posts on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook during the 2019 election(2021) Boulianne, Shelley; Larsson, Anders OlofSocial media are critical tools offering connections between political actors, voters, and journalists. However, existing scholarship rarely assesses how user engagement differs by platform, content, and function of the post. We examine Facebook (n = 938), Instagram (n = 258), and Twitter (n = 1771) posts by the leaders of three major political parties in Canada during the 2019 Federal Election. Across all three platforms, Liberal Leader Trudeau’s posts receive the most engagement. On Twitter, attack posts receive slightly more engagement and interaction posts receive less engagement, compared with other platforms. While policy posts produce lower levels of engagement across platforms, Facebook is distinctive in yielding the lowest levels of user engagement on policy posts. In sum, our findings suggest that political leaders should tailor the content of their social media posts to different platforms.Item Implementing Indigenous education policy directives in Ontario Public Schools: experiences, challenges and successful practices(2017) Milne, EmilyThe Ontario Ministry of Education has declared a commitment to Indigenous student success and has advanced a policy framework that articulates inclusion of Indigenous content in schooling curriculum (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2007). What are the perceptions among educators and parents regarding the implementation of policy directives, and what is seen to encourage or limit meaningful implementation? To answer these questions, this article draws on interviews with 100 Indigenous (mainly Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe, and Métis) and non-Indigenous parents and educators from Ontario Canada. Policy directives are seen to benefit Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. Interviews also reveal challenges to implementing Indigenous curricular policy, such as unawareness and intimidation among non-Indigenous educators regarding how to teach material. Policy implications are considered.Item Public perspectives on curriculum reform for truth and reconciliation in Canada(2023) Wotherspoon, Terry; Milne, EmilyThe implementation of school reforms to advance reconciliation with Indigenous peoples provides an opportunity to explore what Canadians think is important in framing their identities and values. This paper draws on data from a survey of public perspectives on education for reconciliation activities in two Canadian provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan. We consider the broader community context within which schools are located. By examining public perspectives, we are able to assess how curricular initiatives related to reconciliation are understood by community members, both as a priority in itself and in relation to other key curricular areas. Informed by critical race theory, our findings suggest that reconciliation is restricted to activities that do not involve extensive change to existing curricular and ideational frameworks. These perspectives exist alongside extensive opposition to reconciliation justified by claims that Indigenous experiences and perspectives are receiving undue attention relative to more pressing educational priorities. Our findings suggest that aims to transform dominant understandings about Canadian history and identity remain far from being fulfilled.Item Public schooling and contested public discourses concerning reconciliation(2020) Wotherspoon, Terry; Milne, EmilyThe 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission final report and accompanying Calls to Action have prompted educational reforms in school jurisdictions across Canada. Drawing on data from a survey of public perspectives in Alberta and Saskatchewan, this article explores how these reforms are understood by community members to highlight the significance of competing discourses conveyed through public perspectives on reconciliation processes. General support for the idea of reconciliation conceals the limited extent to which respondents are willing to engage with important realities of settler colonial societies, embedded within discourses that are more likely to defend than challenge the dominant frameworks within which Indigenous–settler relations have been constituted in the Canadian context.Item The Twitter Racism Project(2014) Chaudhry, IrfanThis project discusses one method on collecting racist data using Twitter. While there are other studies that have used Twitter to collect data on racist language (see: Bartlet et. al, 2014; Awan, 2014), this project focuses on the author’s original research project. Outlining a 2013 case study, this project looks at a small sample of racist tweets from six major Canadian cities in order to 1) analyze how racist terms are being used on Twitter in these cities and 2) highlight why Twitter is an important data collection tool for researchers interested in studying race and racism.Item Who matters in climate change discourse in Alberta(2019) Boulianne, Shelley; Belland, StephanieClimate change is major global policy issue. The news media play a vital role in conveying information about climate change to the public, giving voice to a variety of perspectives as well as outlining policy responses to this issue. However, the growing distrust of news media could lead to dire outcomes on the public's knowledge and policy support related to climate change. This paper uses a mixed method approach (random digit dialing survey, content analysis of newspaper articles) to examine information sources used in learning about climate change, whose voices are presented in climate change discourse, and whose voices are trusted. While news media are the most popular source of information about climate change (n=1207), only half of respondents reported trusting the news media. Scientists are the most trusted source of information (n=1208) and most cited source in news coverage (n=48). Their messages focus on the sources of climate change and the seriousness of this problem. Scientists' messages about climate change are clouded by high levels of distrust in the news media, the primary venue through which their messages are conveyed. In this context, climate change knowledge, level of concern, and support for public policies may suffer.