Question content, Scope, Purpose

Hey guys; wow that's a lot of responses, you guys are way more on top of this for me. Sorry for getting to this so late, my internet was down yesterday and the night before, it's been pretty lame. I look forward to working with you all, it looks like this group is quite motivated (which is a relief). I'll try and add what I can into the discussion here, but you guys have done a great job so far.

@Lucy with regards to your survey question on multiculturalism in Canada: I like that direction of thought you took there though and we should definitely explore multiculturalism further as a potential area for our survey's focus. We should be really very careful when crafting these sorts of questions however word-wise. This is a good start, but asking this question if we use terms like "disrespectful" can inadvertently prime readers towards certain responses, so when we do the real thing we should just keep it in mind. I know you just threw it out there though so no need for me to have a fussy-fit over wording.

In general, perhaps we should start breaking down our questions into big chunks? Start very broad with areas of focus (i.e. "issues of multiculturalism among immigrants in Canada" or "opportunities for employment amon newly settled immigrants) and then perhaps start a voting or, consensus measure so that we can get a better of idea of where we're going to focus on. If we can choose an area of focus, we can break it down even further and pick out some specifics so that we can put together a theory and generate a hypothesis. If this seems like a bad idea just, feel free to dismiss it, but if this works I'll try and summarize some of the general areas of focus people have come up with so far:

Income inequality among new immigrants in Canada (i.e. poverty levels among new immigrants in Canada before and after settlement, differences in opportunity between wealthy/unwealthy, skilled/non-skilled immigrants, etc.)

Employment opportunities among new immigrants in Canada (i.e. likelihood an employer will hire someone with a thick accent, differences between work opportunities among anglophone vs. non-anglophone/first world vs. third world/etc. immigrants and non-immigrants, etc., skilled immigrant return rate to professions of expertise ''after'' immigration)

Government assistance and resources for new immigrants in Canada (i.e. work assistance and training programs, outreach for schooling and language instruction, effectiveness of programs addressing income inequality actually reducing income inequality, etc.)

Attitudes towards new immigrants and immigrant attitudes towards Canada (i.e. attitudes among locals towards immigrants in terms of employment, assimilation, multiculturalism, etc., attitudes among new immigrants towards their adopted country, differences of attitudes between immigrants seeking residency vs. citizenship, attitudes among new immigrants towards effectiveness of gov't programs and/or perceived gov't outreach)

Multiculturalism as a policy towards immigrants (i.e. does multiculturalism exist as an attitude among Canadians/Is it important/Do immigrants feel as if stipulations within the Charter are functioning in their day to day lives, differences between new immigrants' feelings on multiculturalism between those settled in heterogenous vs. homogenous (from their cultural perspective)areas, etc.)

Those are the 5ish generalized suggestions I've seen so far. Feel free to critique or add more (thanks Min for pre-summarizing most of it for me). What I'd suggest is that we break these down into, as Mayra says, different thread topics. Have everyone 'vote' for one they'd like to do and we'll just do a plurality; if there's a tie we'll do a run off (majoritarian style). We're all poli sci students right? (ha). These are purposefully made veryyyyy general, so don't get too caught up in the wording or definitions yet (add or supplement though, for instance if you don't want to just explore new immigrants that is certainly something worthy considering). Once we've selected a specific topic to focus on, we can again narrow the focus of our research and start collaborating on a specific area we're interested in studying (i.e. "does multiculturalism exist as an attitude among Canadians?") and start looking into how it's possible to do that, what kind of survey questions we'd need to ask it (knowing we need and can only use 5 in mind), how we're going to approach it, etc. That way we're not wading through the dark. If someone wants they can put up the other threads that'd be great but I can do it later if not.