Canada as social structure: Social network analysis and Canadian sociology

We review the social network approach to structural analysis, give a brief historical sketch of its development in Canada and abroad, and provide an overview of Canadian contributions to this field. We review research in the following areas: personal communities, computer supported social networks, social capital (social mobility, social support, social exchange), cultural capital, structural social psychology (social comparison and evaluation, attitude formation), collective action (mobilization for collective action and social movements, inter-and-intra movement dynamics), inter-organizational and class relations,and world systems. We discuss the core contributions of network scholars, challenges faced by network researchers, and make suggestions for future lines of inquiry. We conclude that while social network analysis is undoubtedly an international enterprise, Canadian scholars have made core contributions on a number of fronts over the past two decades.