Claire Durand

What did Quebeckers Want? Impact of Question Wording, Constitutional Proposal and Context on Support for Sovereignty, 1976–2008

The idea of sovereignty has been part of Québecs political landscape for more than 45 years, giving rise to two referendums. Throughout this period, pollsters surveyed the population. Using close to 700 polls published since the first election of Parti Québécois in 1976, this article examines how support for sovereignty evolved outside the referendum campaigns and since the last one in the Fall of 1995. Using longitudinal multilevel analysis, it takes into account two levels of explanation: first, the wording of the question, which includes the type of constitutional proposal polled; and second, the passage of time and the events that marked it. This meta-analysis confirms that sovereignty combined with an association with the rest of Canada has always stood apart from more “extreme” constitutional options as having the highest support, and it therefore automatically resurfaced at the start of any referendum campaign. It also confirms that the different events that marked the period only had a temporary effect on support for sovereignty.

Les sondages moins rigoureux sont-ils moins fiables?

Bill C-83 proposes to regulate the publication of polls and their methodology during electoral campaigns. It would be necessary to determine the type of pertinent methodological information in order to judge the quality of the poll. This article presents results of a study on the relation between methodology used in polls published in Quebec during the May/June 1997 federal electoral campaign and the quality of the estimates of voter intentions. Analysis verifies that, when the methodology used was less rigorous, the spread between the polls and the true voter intentions was larger and less stable even when taking account of errors due to sample size. These results underline the necessity to enforce requirements about the publication of the methodology of the surveys reported during electoral campaigns and of revising Bill C-83 accordingly.

Reply/Réponse The New Act Has Merit if Enforced ­ Exactly What I Said

De Clercy and Ferguson state that there are problems with my analysis of poll reporting during the 2000 Canadian election. One disagreement is with the methodology used. I analyzed first-hand reports of the national polls published in all Canadian newspapers in French and in English. I maintain that this is a better choice than theirs: a case study of all reports in one newspaper. I agree that the major problem with the Elections Act is enforcement, but I contend that if the Act were clearer about which information is required, it would be easier to enforce.

Gender differences in the earnings produced by a middle range education: The case of Canadian ‘colleges’

In this paper we use data on consecutive cohorts of recent graduates from community colleges or community college-like institutions to address the following questions about the gender earnings gap: i) What was the trend in the gender earnings gap for these recent graduates? ii) What role in the observed trends in the gender earnings gap was played by occupational demand? iii) How and to what extent did the domestic division of labour contribute to the gender earnings gap in this young sample? We find that the gap fell then rose, that occupational demand played a role in these shifts, and that the domestic division of labour did indeed contribute to the gap in this young sample. Furthermore, our results point to a process of cumulation of factors that increase the earnings gap which has both substantive and methodological implications.

Application de la théorie de réponse aux items à l'analyse d'échelles d'attitude

Application of Item Response Theory to the Analysis of Attitude Scales. The article presents Item Response Theory (lRT) and illustrates its application to the analysis of two measures of work-related attitudes -- value given to social aspects of the job and satisfaction with extrinasic aspects of the job. Results of IRT analysis show that extrinsic satisfaction cannot be measured in the same way among contract professionals as opposed to regular employees. Using information provided by IRT analysis. it appeared that satisfaction with salary cannot be included in a scale measuring extrinsic satisfaction because it does not contribute to the measure in the same way for the two groups of employees: furthermore, satisfaction with social benefits may be included in the scale only if discrimination and difficulty parameters are allowed to vary across groups. Analyses of variance using theta scores estimated in this way give statistical conclusions that are notably different form those obtained using traditional additive scores and permit refinement of interpretation.