Perspectives on the Social Sciences in Canada

The papers included in this volume were originally presented at a conference to commemorate the opening of the Social Science Centre at the University of Western Ontario in 1973. Participants were asked to take stock of the development of their disciplines in Canada, to assay the contours of current endeavours, and to comment upon avenues of future research. Their efforts mark what is believed to be the first collective assessment of the social sciences in Canada.

The contributors include: Nathan Keyfitz on sociology, C.B. Macpherson on political science; H.G. Johnson on economics; Ramsay Cook on history; and M. Rokeach on the place of values in Canadian social science. Commentaries on the papers are also included.

Each author has addressed himself to one or more of the following matters: the degree to which the disciplines as practised in Canada are linked to or differentiated from their practice elsewhere; the benefits and drawbacks of a 'nationalistic' approach to scholarship in the social sciences; the contributions of Canadian scholarship to the study of society in general and Canadian society in particular; the interaction among the social sciences in Canada and the need for inter-disciplinary studies; and the unfulfilled agenda of Canadian social science. The assessments thus delineate the peculiar problems of the social sciences in Canada as well as some of the overall problems within and among the disciplines themselves.