The modernity of sociological production in Quebec from 1945 to 1980 cannot be attempted without referring to the transformation in the general conditions of Quebec's expression of itself as a society during this period. We can regroup this sociography schematically into four distinct approaches: the first, from 1945 to 1960, presented itself as a form of critical knowledge of adaptation which illustrated the inadequacy of references to traditionalism. The beginning of the 1960s marked the transition towards the predominance of a representational form which thereafter presented Quebec as a political society. In the third tendency a functionalist sociology, linked to the consolidation of the Keynesian state, took root. The 1970s saw in contradistinction the affirmation of a sociology of emancipation. Divided between two mutually antagonistic approaches, culturalist and political, Quebec sociology is working towards the redefinition of a Québécois society henceforth caught in the determining web of modernity.