The Department of Sociology welcomes Jennifer Elrick 

The Department of Sociology Speaker Series presents:

Jennifer Elrick 

Associate Professor of Sociology and Research Chair in Multiculturalism at McGill University
Research focus: social construction of state classifications for immigrants as well as their material and symbolic effects

Friday, November 29, 2024

1:30-3:00pm

Law Building, Room 2

Making Middle-Class Multiculturalism: Immigration Bureaucrats and Policymaking in Postwar Canada

This talk takes us inside the Department of Citizenship and Immigration (currently Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada) in the 1950s and 1960s, a time when Canada was facing strong economic and political pressures to change its immigration system. Specifically, it examines the role played by high-level immigration bureaucrats in crafting the move from a selection system centred on national origins to one emphasizing individual merit and social ties. It argues that the overlooked interplay between immigration case processing and policymaking provides new insights into the timing and content of this paradigmatic policy shift. This is especially important for understanding how notions of race and social class shaped new immigrant selection criteria and made Canada multicultural along
middle-class lines. The talk concludes with a discussion of the contemporary implications of this historical case study.