Social policy shapes the daily lives of every Canadian citizen and should reflect the beliefs of a majority of Canadians on just approaches to the... promotion of health, safety, and well-being. Too often, those on the front lines—social workers, nurses, and teachers—observe that policies do not work well for the most vulnerable groups in society. In the first part of this new edition of Canadian Social Policy, Westhues and Wharf argue that service deliverers have discretion in how policies are implemented, and the exercise of this discretion is how citizens experience policy—whether or not it is fair and reasonable. They show the reader how social policy is made and they encourage active citizenship to produce policies that are more socially just. New material includes an examination of the reproduction of systemic racism through the implementation of human rights policy and a comparative analysis of the policy-making process in Quebec and English Canada. The second part of the book discusses policy issues currently under debate in Canada. Included are new chapters that explore parental leave policies and housing as a determinant of health. All chapters contain newly updated statistical data and research and policy analysis. A reworked section on the process of policy-making and the addition of questions for critical reflection enhance the suitability of the book as a core resource in social policy courses. The final chapter explores how front-line workers in the human services can advocate for change in organizational policies that will benefit the people supported.

This text investigates the fundamental questions and issues of Canadian society within the framework of a national unit. The objective is to provide the... reader with a sense of the continual transformation of Canadian society and to sketch the forces that contribute to change. By discussing demographic differences such as language and ethnicity, and Canadian dilemmas such as foreign influence, cultural dualism, inequality, regionalism, and nationalism. Hiller illuminates both the unique character of Canadian society and the struggle of constituent populations in a negotiated entity to define their nation in the past and the future.

This second edition opens up an engaging and much-needed overview of our society, at a level appropriate for a wide range of courses in Canadian... Studies, Sociology, and History. This original work examines the growth and development of Canadian society within a socio-historical framework. The authors investigate historical, economic, political, cultural, and ideological perspectives through three key relationships: Quebec and Canada, Canada and the United States, and Canada and the Aboriginal Nations. The book: Examines society as a set of relationships that emerge gradually over time as fostered, encouraged, and mediated by a set of institutions, in particular, the state and markets; Explores society as the product of an historical narrative -- a movie, rather than a snapshot - which enlists many literary devices, including myths, metaphors, symbols, heroes, villains, and tragic figures; Identifies the complex relationship between individuals and society. Students are asked to consider to what extent individuals create society, and conversely, to what extent society creates individuals.

The field of Canadian Studies is a growing discipline, particularly in the United States. This introductory text offers a thorough and accessible... approach to Canadian Studies through comparative analyses of Canada and the United States, their histories, geographies, political systems, economies, and cultures. Among the topics addressed are ways in which Canadian national development has been influenced by the U.S., the role of geography in shaping the country's evolution, and the persistent question of Canada's French-speaking minority, which has been an important and divisive issue since the 1500s.Canadian Studies in the New Millennium is an excellent introduction to Canadian Studies, with chapters written by leading scholars and educators in the field. At a time in which there is a growing mutual dependence between the U.S. and Canada for security, trade, and investment, this text is an ideal tool for understanding the close relationship between the two countries, their shared experiences, and their differing views.Canadian Studies in the New Millennium will be of significant value to students, educators, and practitioners.

Urban geography in Canada is constantly undergoing changes and, as such, the study of the discipline must reflect these changes. Approaching the subject... from a unique vantage point, Canadian Urban Regions: Trajectories of Growth and Change brings together some of the most respected scholars in the discipline to discuss important developments and examine the path urban geography in Canada is following. The organization of this text will help upper-level students studying urban geography to expand on concepts already gleaned in their introductory years-it moves from a theoretical framework, on to practical case studies, and then to a discussion of where the discipline is headed in the future. By providing insight into both theoretical perspectives and contemporary views, this text fully encompasses the changes and challenges in Canadian urban geography today.

Canadian Working Class History: Selected Readings, Third Edition, is an updated version of the bestselling reader that brings together recent and... classic scholarship on the history, politics, and social groups of the working class in Canada. Some of the changes readers will find in the new edition include: better representation of women scholars, and nine provocative and ground-breaking new articles on racism and human rights, women's equality; gender history, Quebec sovereignty; and the environment.

'Written in a lively and entertaining style, this little book, which deals with topics such as 'personhood', animal rights, and artificial intelligence... ...makes some rather difficult philosophical points clear in an unpedantic fashion' - M E Winston, Trenton State College.

Once isolated from the modern world in the heights of the Andean mountains, the indigenous communities of Ecuador now send migrants to New York City as... readily as they celebrate festivals whose roots reach back to the pre-Columbian past. Fascinated by this blending of old and new and eager to make a record of traditional customs and rituals before they disappear entirely, photographer-journalist Judy Blankenship spent several years in Cañar, Ecuador, photographing the local people in their daily lives and conducting photography workshops to enable them to preserve their own visions of their culture. In this engaging book, Blankenship combines her sensitively observed photographs with an inviting text to tell the story of the most recent year she and her husband Michael spent living and working among the people of Cañar. Very much a personal account of a community undergoing change, Cañar documents such activities as plantings and harvests, religious processions, a traditional wedding, healing ceremonies, a death and funeral, and a home birth with a native midwife. Along the way, Blankenship describes how she and Michael went from being outsiders only warily accepted in the community to becoming neighbors and even godparents to some of the local children. She also explains how outside forces, from Ecuador's failing economy to globalization, are disrupting the traditional lifeways of the Cañari as economic migration virtually empties highland communities of young people. Blankenship's words and photographs create a moving, intimate portrait of a people trying to balance the demands of the twenty-first century with the traditions that have formed their identity for centuries.

"It may be a manifesto, but its humor and informality—in and among hair-raising details—make it an entertaining one."—Boston GlobeIn the late... 1970s Chip Ward and his wife left the Sleeping Rainbow Ranch in Capitol Reef National Park to raise their children in the classic small-town American setting of Grantsville, Utah. There, on the edge of the Great Basin Desert, disturbing tales of local sickness and death interrupted an idyllic life. A seven-year quest to understand a hidden history of ecocide followed. Canaries on the Rim is Ward's firsthand account of that quest and how lessons learned in the wilderness were later applied to building opposition to toxic waste disposal, chemical weapons incineration, industrial pollution, and nuclear waste storage. The secret holocaust that is unfolding along the toxic shadow of America's Great Basin Desert is grim, but Ward's colorful and often-humorous story is not. Canaries on the Rim is a warning and a call to arms, but it is also a compelling drama and a lively primer on environmental activism. If civil action took place in Edward Abbey's West, this is the book that would result.