in the 1950s was a tightly knit group of wealthy, predominantly Anglo-Saxon men, centred in Montreal, Quebec and Toronto, Ontario. This group controlled Canada's financial, industrial and political spheres. While there appeared to be one elite, Porter found that there were actually several elite groups, comprising economic, political, labour, and ideological realms. His work thus echoes and expands on United States sociologist C. Wright Mills' study of power elites in the United States. In 1965, the year The Vertical Mosaic was published, sociology, as a discipline, had virtually no academic or mainstream currency: nationwide there were only 115 university based sociologists. There was no national sociology textbook, the closest thing being a volume, compiled by Porter, which featured a loose collection of Canadian Sociology readings. Further, while contemporary Canadian sociology is marked by its breadth of topics and questions – class, power, race, education, ability, work, gender – and, frankly, a commitment to a left-leaning politic, none of this was true in 1965. The publication of The Vertical Mosaic did, thus, three things: first, it established sociology as a legitimate discipline in the Canadian context; second, it pioneered a macrosociological approach that put class at the centre of its analysis and, third, it constituted an initial offering in the emergent field of inequality studies and diversity studies. Indeed, Rick Helmes-Hayes argues that the book set the tone, parameters of debate and questions for the next fifteen years in sociology. The Vertical Mosaic led to the adoption of the term cultural mosaic by Canadian government agencies such as Statistics Canada, but Porter himself was an opponent of Canada's multiculturalism policy. Porter, along with Peter Pineo, developed the Pineo-Porter index of socioeconomic status. To honour Porter's importance in developing sociology in Canada, the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association initiated an annual award called the Porter award. Shortly before his death in 1979, he put together ten of his most significant essays in The Measure of Canadian Society: Education, Equality, and Opportunity. He died in Ottawa later that year, due to a heart attack. References . . External links Canadian Social Approaches Notes from a lecture by Paul Gingrich, University of Regina Department of Sociology and Social Studies (1999). Interview with John Porter CBC Archives John Arthur Porter fonds (MG31-D104) at Library and Archives Canada 1921 births 1979 deaths Canadian sociologists Canadian university and college faculty deans Carleton University faculty Carleton University alumni