Awards / Prix

The 2010 John Porter Memorial Book prize was awarded to John Goyder (on the right) for his book The Prestige Squeeze, published by McGill-Queen's University Press, 2009. Le prix du livre John Porter 2010 a été décerné à John Goyder (à droite) pour son livre The Prestige Squeeze, publié à la maison d'édition McGill-Queen's University Press, 2009.

A video PowerPoint presentation of Dr Goyder`s plenary session can be viewed here.

Sociologists have studied occupational prestige for decades, including a landmark national survey in 1965 by Peter Pineo and John Porter. John Goyder updates Pineo and Porter's work, providing a detailed comparison of their results with a similar national scale survey conducted in 2005. The results challenge the accepted view that prestige ratings are constant over time and across societies. Goyder shows that there have been some surprising changes in these ratings: instead of the expected premium on jobs in the knowledge sector, more traditional occupations - such as the skilled trades, even if they require little education or pay a low wage - have gained the most prestige. There has been a significant decrease in consensus about occupational prestige ratings and the tendency for respondents to upgrade the prestige of their own occupation is much more pronounced in the recent data. Goyder argues that these changes are a sign of the shifting nature of values in a meritocratic society in which increasing income inequality is a growing reality. Results from prestige surveys help in the construction of socio-economic scales for occupations and inform career counselling for young people and negotiations by labour unions and associations. The Prestige Squeeze goes beyond this to question the very nature of how we measure social equality and mobility.

John Goyder is professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Waterloo. The book may be purchased through McGill-Queen's University Press

The committee’s nomination for the 2011 outstanding contribution to the field of sociology was given to Dr. William K. Caroll. (on the left). Le récipiendaire du prix de contribution remarquable à la discipline de sociologie a été décerné à Dr. William K. Caroll (à la gauche).

From the 2011 Awards Committee AGM Report

Dr. Carroll is a sociologist of internationally recognized stature who also has made a sustained and life long contribution to the discipline through service to the Association by his scholarly leadership on editorial boards of sociology journals both at home and internationally, In addition his collaboration with international scholars has made him a well known scholar both in Canada and also in the international arena. Dr. Carroll’s research interests are in the areas of social movements and social change as well as the political economy of corporate capitalism and critical social theory and method. His book (and co author Bob Hackett) on Remaking Media: The Struggle to democratize public
communication, focuses on democratic media reform as an emergent social movement. His career is entering its fourth decade and during that time he has had an impressive range and volume of scholarly contributions.

As his nominator noted, Dr. Carrolls’ work on corporate power establishes a benchmark for the conduct of research in the area of political economy and his work is always carefully grounded empirically, making brilliant and extraordinarily valuable contributions not only to Canadian Sociology but to our more general understanding of what is happening in Canadian society. Again, as one of his supporters writes: “he doesn’t let theoretical terms wander as if they had a life of their own; they are grounded in substantive findings that take the representation of what is happening in Canadian society as the level of its governance to new levels of understanding. Dr. Carroll has previously served as the editor of The Canadian Review of Sociology (at which time he initiated the journal’s move to “on-line” processing), served as CSAA conference organizer and is currently serving as the president of the International Sociology Association’s Research Committee 02 (Economy and Society). He also has been the associate editor and consulting editor for the CSA. In addition, he is an associate editor or member of the board for a number of other presses, journals associations and centres. Dr. Carroll has been awarded the Canadian Sociology Association’s John Porter Memorial Prize twice: in 1988 for his seminal works on corporate power and capitalist class formation--Corporate Power and Canadian Capitalism and in 2006 for Corporate Power in a Globalizing World—just two of the seven books he has published in the past decade. These books have been important works addressing corporate power and capitalist class formation, social movement organizing, the history and prospects of social democracy and on critical social theory and methods. Finally I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge his work with Bob Ratner Organizing Dissent. This edited collection remains an important reference in the field of resource mobilization/political process in Canada nearly two decades after it was first published. In addition, Dr. Carroll has been very supportive of students and young colleagues. He has supervised or been a committee member for countless MA and PhD students and has been a generous mentor of new colleagues in the discipline. It is always noticeable that he takes time at the Congress or other conferences to meet with young colleagues and is more than happy to act as chair or discussant on sessions run by new academics. This mentorship of new scholars has not gone unnoticed and it is not unusual to hear new scholars comment on Dr. Carroll’s insightful commentary about their presentations that have urged them on to pursue their scholarly pursuits.

In summary, it is not only the extensive list of publications that Dr. Carroll has published over his 30+ year career, but the quality of those publications that have led the committee to make this award. Hence, I did not focus on the numbers of books articles and book chapters (to say nothing about the number of local, regional, national and international presentations he has made over the years). His work reveals the depth and comprehensiveness and sometimes the ingenuity of research dealing with the topics he has chosen to focus upon. Readers of his work will find that it is enlightening and informative and he has made an extraordinarily brilliant and valuable contribution to Sociology. As another one of Dr. Carroll’s supporters noted, “I want to emphasize not jut the fineness and brilliance of Carroll’s work as a scholarly exploration of the contemporary Canadian corporate order and how it is hooked into globalizing relations, but also its significance for an adequate understanding going beyond the strictly scholarly. His contribution on both these dimensions is major.”Dr. Carroll has demonstrated his commitment to the profession and his colleagues and students have benefited enormously from his scholarly work. The 2010-11 Awards Committee would like to publicly acknowledge Dr. Carroll’s contribution and recommend him to receive the Outstanding Contribution Award.

Dr. William K. Caroll is professor at the University of Victoria.

The committee’s nomination for the 2011 annual meeting best student paper award is Temitope Oriola's Kidnapping as "Public Good": the Actors, Social Benefits and Harms of Nigeria's Oil Insurgency. Le récipiendaire du prix de la meilleure communication étudiante de la conférence annuelle de 2011 est Temitope Oriola's Kidnapping as "Public Good": the Actors, Social Benefits and Harms of Nigeria's Oil Insurgency.

From the 2011 Awards Committee AGM Report