Getting Started on Social Analysis in Canada

Peter Penz was Associate Professor, York University, Downsview, Ontario.

What the authors mean by social analysis is, on the one hand, to uncover “the deep inequities and structural problems that characterize Canadian society” and, on the other, to help individuals and groups to do so by posing questions that emerge from concrete experience. It thus does not presuppose familiarity with the academic social sciences. Moreover, its language and its extensive use of anecdotal material make it both very easy and interesting to read.

What it does presuppose is that the reader is at least sympathetic to its ethical commitment to the priority of the needs of the poor, of the self-determination of the powerless, and of communal participation over economic growth as such and the economic liberties of the privileged. The book’s origin in the work of the Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice in Toronto explains this ethical stance. Religious material as such, however, is not involved.

The book is organized into three parts. The first part introduces social analysis as a form of diagnosis and illustrates it by reference to the issues of health care, housing, and pollution. The second part spells out the elements of social analysis (symptoms, “commodification”, social costs and structures), deals with the economy (the distribution of food, unemployment, microtechnology, and energy) and concludes with a discussion of ideology and the mass media. The final part focuses on understanding the social conditions of the elderly, native Canadians, women, and the international context of, and Canadian policy toward, Central America.

By working mostly from concrete issues toward structural explanations, rather than the reverse, it provides a palatable and stimulating introduction to the understanding of society. This is not without its costs, however. Alternative ideological or theoretical perspectives other than its own, which itself becomes apparent mostly through its application rather than through explicit delineation, are not developed (except liberal capitalism, very briefly, and periodic references to conventional beliefs), and the central questions of these other paradigms, such as the structural requirements of social coherence or the efficient performance of the economy, are not addressed. However, as a first, cross-disciplinary introduction to the study of society, for students (high school or college) as well as for citizens seeking to understand their own plight and that of others in order to exercise effectively their democratic rights and responsibilities, I cannot think of a more inviting and suitable one than this book.