Les cinquante ans de la Revue canadienne de science politique : Le bilinguisme en déclin?

In this address, I argue that the organizational and ideational evolution of political science is closely interconnected with Canada’s history and unequal social relations since Confederation. This is because organized political science in Canada was really at heart a national venture. As a consequence, in order to understand the ideas animating early political scientists we have to consider Canada’s foundational status as a settler colony in the North American space, with a privileged place in the British Empire. This perspective may also help to highlight the distinct features of the colonial present which are giving rise to multiple sites of knowledge production-or multiple knowledges.

Section: Political Science At the Sesquicentennial: Power Multiple Kmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narrating Canadian Political Science: History Revisited

Abu‐Laban¹

2017

“…However, we agree with Rocher (2007) that even if language barriers were at play, this argument would be a poor excuse from people who claim to be interested in humans and their interactions in society. This idea is also reiterated by Godbout (2017), who claims that we should expect anglophone colleagues to engage with francophones' works and research interests. In the next section, we turn to our first study, which is on the representation of francophones and anglophones in Canadian politics syllabi.…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

Language Matters: The Study of Canadian Politics through an Exploration of Syllabi and Comprehensive Exams

Daoust

Gagnon²,

Galipeau³

2022

The representation of Canada's two main linguistic groups in the teaching of Canadian politics is crucial, but we know little about it. In this article, we analyze the systemic underrepresentation of francophone authors in Canadian political science by examining the research that students are exposed to. Based on data from 351 syllabi across 42 Canadian universities, as well as data from the reading list of the doctoral qualifying field exams in Canadian politics, our findings show that francophone authors are systemically underrepresented (when not totally absent). About 38 per cent of Canadian politics courses include no francophone authors in their reading lists. Our findings suggest that Canadian politics is not an inclusive and comprehensive field. This result entails important implications not only for current professors and students but also for the profession more generally, given that the students who will make up tomorrow's faculties in Canadian universities are shaped by these biases.

Replicating “Language Matters”: Taking Baselines into Account

Ouellet,

Brie,

Montigny

2024

This study evaluates the visibility of French-speaking scholars in Canadian political science by analyzing the reading materials assigned in Canadian politics courses. Extending Daoust et al.'s (2022) research, we establish a baseline for their calculations and build an original dataset gathered from all political science departments’ websites and Google Scholar. Our analysis based on three assumptions about the expected academic representation of francophones—Canada's linguistic composition, the makeup of political science departments and faculty members’ productivity—reveals a discrepancy favouring anglophone scholars by up to four percentage points. Our findings extend Daoust et al.'s (2022) contribution by highlighting a similar language-based bias in overall citation practices among Canadian scholars, with French-speaking authors being significantly under-cited compared to their English-speaking counterparts despite demonstrating higher levels of overall productivity. Implications for the future of the discipline are also discussed.