Deck 12: Racial Inequality, Social Cohesion, and Policy Issues in Canada

Question 1

What major change in immigration occurred beginning in the 1970s?

A) The shift toward non-European sources of immigration increased.
B) Immigration became more evenly spread between rural and urban areas.
C) The shift towards European sources of immigration increased.
D) "Direct-route" legislation was removed from the Immigration Act.
E) Education and skills training became new pillars of temporary residency.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

What was the largest group of immigrants to Canada in 2016?

A) Americans
B) South Asians
C) Chinese
D) Arabs
E) Italians

Answer 2

B

Question 3

What was the poverty rate for racial minorities relative to the rest of the population in 2001?

A) Equal
B) About half
C) Nearly double
D) Triple
E) Four times higher

Answer 3

C

Question 4

What is the "entry effect"?

A) A period of adjustment after immigration
B) The effect an immigrant population has on their new surroundings
C) The effect of the immigrant population on the tax base
D) The effect of immigration on crime statistics
E) The effect of immigration on the mental health of immigrants

Question 5

Which of the following is not related to increased difficulties for immigrants?

A) The move towards a knowledge economy
B) Discrimination
C) The transformation of the occupational structure
D) An overall increase in earnings inequality
E) Declining educational attainment levels

Question 6

What is a broader institutional change occurring in Canada that may be affecting the economic situation of immigrants?

A) Increases in social services
B) Diminished costs for public services
C) Government quotas applied to local businesses that enforce a minimum number of Canadians employed.
D) Increasing costs for retraining and educational upgrading
E) More stringent evaluation of foreign educational qualifications

Question 7

What happens to perceptions of discrimination among immigrants as experience in Canada increases?

A) It increases equally for all groups.
B) It decreases equally for all groups.
C) Visible minority groups perceive more discrimination.
D) Non-visible minority groups report more discrimination.
E) It varies by group but decreases for all second-generation Canadians compared to their parents.

Question 8

The earnings lost due to what long-standing problem potentially amount to $2 billion annually?

A) Lack of Canadian job experience
B) Lack of official language knowledge
C) Lack of recognition of foreign credentials
D) Lack of accommodation for religious beliefs
E) Lack of experience with technology and information management

Question 9

Why do survey results pertaining to how significantly prejudices affect employment opportunities tend to underestimate perceptions?

A) Visible minorities tend to equate all employment difficulties as stemming from discrimination.
B) Whites do not accurately assess racial prejudice because of underlying feelings of guilt.
C) Visible minorities tend to underreport prejudicial behaviour out of fear of punishment.
D) Whites include so-called "reverse discrimination" in their perceptions of racial prejudice.
E) Everyone assumes that inequalities arise from personal characteristics and not systemic discrimination.

Question 10

Which of the following is not a type of evidence that is cited in discussions of the extent of discrimination?

A) Prejudiced attitudes
B) Evidence of discrimination in human rights cases
C) Field tests of discrimination
D) Statistical analyses of earnings gaps in labour market surveys
E) Media framing of minorities in their reporting

Question 11

Which term refers to minority groups of interest such as Black, Chinese, and South Asian people, and others of non-European backgrounds?

A) Visible minorities
B) Racialized minorities
C) Second-generation immigrants
D) Social integration
E) Social cohesion

Question 12

What concept refers to situations when established practices in an organization exclude minorities?

A) Statistical discrimination
B) Ecological fallacy
C) Systemic discrimination
D) Exception fallacy
E) Symbolic violence

Question 13

The 1997 Human Rights Tribunal dealt with discrimination taking what form?

A) Allegations of unfair entry-level hiring procedures being practices against visible minorities
B) Allegations of unfair entry-level hiring procedures being practices against non-minorities, or so-called reverse discrimination
C) Allegations of a glass ceiling for minorities in a particular federal department
D) Allegations of unjust dismissals against minorities in a particular federal department
E) Allegations of impropriety in the handling of an employee involved in a pro-Palestine social movement

Question 14

Which of the following most accurately describes the findings of Oreopoulos's (2011) study of ethnicity, resumes, and call-back rates?

A) Resumes with more "ethnic" last names would be called just as often as those with English or British names if they had equal educational levels.
B) Resumes with more "ethnic" last names would be called just as often as those with English or British names if they had equal educational levels from a Canadian university.
C) Resumes with more "ethnic" last names would be called far less than those with English or British names even with equal levels of education attained in Canada.
D) There was no relationship between call-backs and racial group after controlling for the type of work being applied for.
E) Resumes with more "ethnic" last names would be called far more than those with English or British names as long as their education was attained in Canada.

Question 15

There is a lack of credible research information on which to base political decision-making regarding putting the concept of equal opportunity in practice. Which institutions could provide adequate research in these regards?

A) Universities
B) Research centers
C) Public foundations
D) Interest groups
E) All of the above

Question 16

How is a lack of social cohesion manifested in society?

A) Over-involvement in decision-making
B) Withdrawal of support for decisions
C) Overly developed organizational capacity to participate in constructive social activities
D) Civil order
E) A high degree of involvement in voluntary associations

Question 17

What concept refers to the extent to which individual members of a group form relationships with people outside the group?

A) Moral regulation
B) Social capital
C) Social integration
D) Social assimilation
E) Social learning

Question 18

What can be said is the centerpiece of Canada's policy on inter-ethnic relations?

A) Assimilation
B) Social solidarity
C) Moral regulation
D) Multiculturalism
E) Cultural relativism

Question 19

What evidence do Reitz and Breton (1994) use to cast doubt on the notion that Canada's multiculturalism has a dramatic impact?

A) Intergroup relations involving immigrants in Canada are not markedly different from those in the US.
B) Program expenditures related to multiculturalism continue to increase with little demonstrable effect.
C) Multiculturalism has never been evaluated in the specific social science sense of the word.
D) Policy related to racial minorities is spread across agencies and different levels of government.
E) Canadians tend to be more open to equality of opportunity in principle, but not in action.

Question 20

Which of the following can be said to be an avenue of access to political decision-making for minority groups?

A) The ethnic community itself
B) Worker associations
C) Community town hall meetings
D) Voting
E) Voluntary associations

Question 21

By 2016, what percentage of the racial minority population were from a born-in-Canada generation?

A) 13.4%
B) 22.3%
C) 31.2%
D) 49%
E) 14%

Question 22

What is the main economic problem for new racial minority immigrants?

A) Getting a place to live
B) Getting a car to drive to work
C) Finding adequate employment
D) Getting into a post-secondary education institution
E) Food insecurity

Question 23

Although new immigrant education levels are at an all-time high, _________.

A) the Government of Canada is not accepting applications for immigration
B) the Government of Canada does not inquire into levels of education regarding immigration
C) new immigrants are rarely accepted into university programs
D) new immigrants have seen reduced employment
E) new immigrants have seen increased taxes

Question 24

In Table 12.1, which visible minority group reported the highest rate of experiences of discrimination?

A) White people
B) Chinese people
C) South Asian people
D) Black people
E) South African people

Question 25

Wilkes and Corrigall-Brown (2011) confirmed that attitudinal change toward immigrants and immigration is the result of what?

A) Changing macro-economic conditions
B) Changing micro-economic conditions
C) Changing climate composition
D) Increased inflation
E) The 2008 financial crisis

Question 26

What could politically undermine the program of immigration?

A) A dip in the economic success of immigrants
B) A dip in the economic success of the born-in-Canada generation
C) A dip in the economic success of Canadian-born citizens
D) The COVID-19 pandemic
E) An increase of prejudicial attitudes toward immigrants and immigration

Question 27

Issues involving police surveillance of minority communities in Canada have a long history, dating back to _________.

A) 2011
B) 2001
C) There is no data
D) the 19th century
E) the 18th century

Question 28

Why is voting a barrier to some immigrants in Canada?

A) Citizenship is a prerequisite
B) Immigrants are not allowed to vote regardless of immigrant status
C) Immigrants often cannot get a driver's license quickly enough upon arrival to present at the voting station
D) Immigrants cannot vote in federal elections
E) Permanent Residence is a prerequisite

Question 29

Which group of visible minorities consistently experience the greatest inequality and slower integration into Canadian society?

A) South Asian people
B) Black people
C) South African people
D) North African people
E) People of European descent

Question 30

A comprehensive approach to coordination of immigration among all levels of government would integrate policy across related issues, including:

A) Immigrant employment
B) Settlement programs
C) Recognition of immigrant qualifications
D) Employment discrimination
E) All of the above

Question 31

In the new millennium, the trend towards racial minority immigrants was reversed.

Question 32

Fairness and shared values are two issues related to ethnic and racial diversity in Canada.

Question 33

Canada's multiculturalism initiative initially sought equality through an emphasis on workplaces.

Question 34

The main economic problem for new racial minority immigrants is finding adequate employment.

Question 35

Entry problems tend to be relatively consistent regardless of economic conditions.

Question 36

The increased earnings disadvantages of immigrants are related to their reduced access to professional-level employment.

Question 37

Existing policies to address the evident racial divide in Canadian society are weakened by their failure to present clear objectives.

Question 38

A majority of the White population feels that prejudice is something that the Canadian government should address with more determination.

Question 39

A weakness of field trials is that while they may show patterns of discrimination, they fail to demonstrate its consequences in the aggregate for minority inequality.

Question 40

Polls taken almost every year between 1975 and 2001 have shown that restricting immigration is a top concern for a majority of Canadians.

Question 41

Experimental field studies have found that there is no variance in employer responses to people from different racial groups applying for the same jobs and presenting the same qualifications.

Question 42

Oreopoulos (2011) found that resumes containing English or British names prompted employer calls for an interview 39 per cent more often than resumes with minority names.

Question 43

One weakness of statistical studies of the earning gap is that deficiencies in qualifications cannot always be measured in survey data.

Question 44

Conflict necessarily detracts from cohesion.

Question 45

Experiences of discrimination and vulnerability cease to affect social integration when earnings are taken into account.

Question 46

The initial formulation of multiculturalism in Canada contained specific goals relevant to the context of its formation and lacked broad ideals and broad objectives.

Question 47

When race relations were introduced under the rubric of multiculturalism in the 1980s, it was not recognized in principle as a separate concern.

Question 48

In the mid-1990s, Mike Harris's government abolished the provincial Employment Equity Act, arguing that it gave undue preference to racial minorities.

Question 49

A perception of multiculturalism as largely symbolic has been reinforced by the fact that program expenditures are very small.

Question 50

Underlying the weaknesses of existing policies intended to address the racial divide in Canadian society is the lack of effective participation by racial minorities in the political decision-making process.

Question 51

The increasing impact of racial diversity in Canada is magnified because of the concentration of minorities in certain immigrant-intensive cities, such as Toronto and Montreal.

Question 52

In 2016, the Canadian-born and so-called "second-generation" of immigrants constituted about 50 percent of the racial minority population.

Question 53

Immigrants' skills tend to be discounted in the labour market.

Question 54

New immigrants have seen reduced employment success because immigrant education levels are at an all-time low.

Question 55

Discriminatory treatment is more likely to be perceived as unjust and lead to serious intergroup antagonism.

Question 56

In groups of Black and Indigenous people, over 40 percent of the members of these two groups agree that racial discrimination is why members of their group "cannot get ahead."

Question 57

Visible minority immigrants have relatively similar earnings to their European counterparts and native-born Canadian workers of European origin.

Question 58

Issues involving police surveillance of minority communities in Canada is a recent phenomenon.

Question 59

According to Table 12.2, the most pervasive pattern affecting all visible minorities is the substantially lower level of Canadian identity and voting.

Question 60

Provincial and municipal governments consider race relations in a consistent manner.

Question 61

How has ethnic and racial diversity changed in Canada between 1971 and 2011? What are two possible ways that this may aversely affect society's cohesiveness?

Question 62

Why is the education and employment for the children of immigrants perhaps a better test of the prevalence of racial discrimination?

Question 63

What is multiculturalism? Why have reactions to multiculturalism been varied?

Question 64

Why have new immigrants seen reduced employment success even though immigrant education levels are at an all-time high?

Question 65

Discuss the Human Rights Tribunal decision. Why was this a remarkable case and what can we draw from human rights complaints?

Question 66

Why do immigrants face employment difficulties? How have these obstacles changed historically?

Question 67

How is discrimination measured? What are the findings of each approach and what are their shortcomings?

Question 68

How does immigration and generational status affect the integration of visible minorities in Canada? How does this relate to the broader notion of social cohesion?

Question 69

Discuss social integration. How is this an important aspect of the Canadian social fabric? How is social integration measured in Canada?

Question 70

Discuss Canada's policy on multiculturalism. Where has it been successful and where has it fallen short?

Question 71

What for you leads to a cohesive society? Are we becoming more or less cohesive? Why?

Question 72

What can we do to improve the employment chances of recent immigrants? What types of policies could be pursued?

Question 73

How do your friends perceive discrimination in Canada? How do their perceptions differ from yours? Do you see any patterns in how it may be perceived differently?

Question 74

Discuss what you know about the Government of Canada's immigration application process. What do you think Canada's immigration process should look like?