ABSTRACT
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, several American social scientists came to the conclusion that French-speaking Québec was likely to remain a backward society, only lightly industrialized and urbanized. A new ideal-type emerged: the “folk society” one which, although it lacked a peasantry and had been urbanized for some time—there had been an urban majority in Québec since 1921—exhibited all the signs of a tradition-dominated culture, with its emphasis on kinship, matriarchal family structures, rural ways, religion, and a general suspicion of all things new and different.
