I am particularly interested in the coercive and voluntaristic processes that shape individual conformity to organizational needs and experiences. Quebec Referendum Study, which is intended to shed light on how events and their representation to people mobilize and alter support for regimes. This is a study of the way in which Canadians formulated an understanding of the meaning of the May 1980 referendum in Quebec on negotiating a new status for Quebec in the Canadian confederation. The event provided an opportunity to study the crystallization of feelings of support for a nation and the contribution of various factors to that process. A threewave panel interview with random samples of approximately 300 adults in each of three middlesized cities in Quebec, Ontario, and Alberta has been completed.
All materials are on clean data tapes.
Urban Subarea Socioeconomic Differentiation. A data file covering all identifiable places and sections in U.S. metropolitan areas is maintained and used to analyze patterns of differentiation and changes in those patterns. Auxiliary data on those areas also are available to address questions concerning both the causes and consequences of these patterns and their change. As an adjunct to my participation in the University's Canadian Studies Program, I conduct a variety of comparative studies that facilitate the formation of a perspective visavis U.S. society. In a recent book, I have posed several propositions about mass communication and the media that are testable as hypotheses.