• John deRoche             Associate Professor of Sociology
• Office: B-265
• Phone and voicemail: (902) 563-1253
• Fax: (902) 563-1247
• E-mail: john_deroche@capebretonu.ca

     I grew up in Nova Scotia, graduated from St. Francis Xavier University with a BA Honours in psychology and sociology, completed my MA and did my doctoral course work in sociology at Washington University (St. Louis), and have taught at Cape Breton University (and its earlier incarnations, going back to Xavier Junior College) since 1972.

Specialty Areas: quantitative and qualitative research methods, applied social research, social theory, social inequality, and health.

Community Service: Besides volunteering as a researcher for community groups over the years, I am presently a member of the Cape Breton Italian Cultural Association and of the Cape Breton AIDS Coalition. My work in the profession has included terms on the executives of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association and the former Atlantic Association of Sociologists and Anthropologists, as well as the role of sociology adjudicator for the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme of the HSSFC.

Research: My quantitative research activities have included various surveys on ideology and self-image of local workers, students’ counseling resources and needs at this university, workplace problems and satisfactions in a local public-service organization, and client satisfaction in a health-support organization. My qualitative work (much of it in partnership with my favourite colleague from anthropology, Connie deRoche) has included an interpretive analysis of racial portrayals in TV police dramas, interview-based exploration of men’s life on the job in the Cape Breton coal mines of years past, evaluation of an adult literacy program, an account of factors that affect teachers’ capacity to deliver of sexuality education, and, most recently, the interplay of ethnicity and well-being within the Cape Breton Italian community.