Abstract
Approximately one in nine persons in Canada is a post-war immigrant. As a result, the public is very much interested in immigrants and immigration policy. The complexity of the reactions to the current situation prompted us to undertake research that would allow description and analysis of the attitudes of native Canadians toward immigrants.1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
See William Petersen, Planned Migration: the Social Determinants of the Dutch-Canadian Movement (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1955),
chapters 6 and 7, for a concise statement of the assumptions and group pressures which influence Canadian immigration policy. H. Infeld, “The Aged in the Process of Ethnic Assimilation”, Sociometry, III (1940) pp. 353–65.
Ronald Taft, “The Shared Frame of Reference Concept Applied to the Assimilation of Immigrants”, Human Relations, VI (1953), pp. 45–55.
Alan Richardson, “The Assimilation of British Immigrants in Australia”, Human Relations, X (1957), pp. 157–66.
Alan Richardson, “Some Psycho-social Characteristics of Satisfied and Dissatisfied British Immigrant Skilled Manual Workers in Western Australia”, Human Relations, X (1957), pp. 235–48.
W. Lloyd Warner and Leo Srole, The Social System of American Ethnic Groups (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1945), pp. 288–9.
Talcott Parsons, The Social System (Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1951);
Talcott Parsons, Robert F. Bales, and Edward A. Shils, Working Papers in the Theory of Action (Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1952), chapters 3 and 5;
Morris Zelditch Jr., “A Note on the Analysis of Equilibrium Systems”, Appendix B in Talcott Parsons and Robert F. Bales, Family, Socialization and Interaction Process (Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1955).
In this study, social system dimensions were: goals, means, status, and solidarity; the spheres of activity were: work, neighbourhood, social-recreational, commercial, family, religious, and educational. The theoretical rationale and the attitude questionnaire developed for this study will be published at a later date. See also Frank E. Jones, “A Sociological Perspective on Immigrant Adjustment”, Social Forces, XXXV (October 1956), pp. 39–47.
“Attitude direction” is a term we shall use to refer to the assumed capacity of attitudes to vary from favourable to unfavourable. We recognize that in our analysis we may simply be reporting on variations in degrees of favourableness or unfavourableness, since we used no special technique, such as Guttman’s intensity function (see S. A. Stouffer et al., Measurement and Prediction (Princeton, N.J.; Princeton University Press, 1950), chapter 7), to attempt to determine a zero point for each item.
A number of studies support the view that the actor’s position in the structure of a given interaction system influences his attitudes. See, for example, the Bavelas-Leavitt studies of communication patterns in Alex Bavelas, “Communication Patterns in Task-oriented Groups”, in Darwin Cartwright and Alvin Zander (eds.), Group Dynamics (Evanston, Illinois: Row, Peterson, 1953),
and in H. J. Leavitt, “Some Effects of Certain Communication Patterns on Group Performance”, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, XLVI (1951), pp. 38–50;
W. F. Whyte, Human Relations in the Restaurant Industry (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1948), and Street Comer Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1945);
George C. Homans, The Human Group (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1950); and many studies which analyse the relation between attitudes and social-class membership.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1968 The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jones, F.E., Lambert, W.E. (1968). Attitudes toward Immigrants in a Canadian Community. In: Blishen, B.R., Jones, F.E., Naegele, K.D., Porter, J. (eds) Canadian Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-81601-9_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-81601-9_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-81603-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-81601-9
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)