Contenu du sommaire

Roger Girod : Sequential analysis of mobility. The question is when are most intergenerational mobility movements taking place? At first regular job step (that is as a direct product of adolescent socialization) or later? That question pertains to what may be called sequential analysis of mobility, a perspective dividing life cycle into several steps. On that basis, it is clear, for instance, that part of intragenerational mobility (moves after first job) increases intergenerational mobility, but that other career moves are diminishing the social distance between generations. Example: father non- manual, son's first job manual, son's job later non-manual. In such a case, job mobility is not a sign of social mobility. On the contrary the inherited status is probably strengthened by it. This kind of cases may be labelled « contra- mobility ». According to a Geneva survey dealing in particular with men aged 50 years and more, the majority of career moves are to be considered as contra-mobility. This survey is presented in the paper. It shows also that the share of first job mobility (difference between father's job and first job) in intergenerational mobility is by far greater than the contribution of further sequences. Comparisons between cohorts indicate that first job mobility is probably increasing as a function of modernization.

Terry N. Clark and Priscilla P. Clark: The patron and his cluster: the key to the French university system. This paper argues, in contrast to some accounts which have focused on individual chairs, that the key to the French system of higher education was the 'cluster'. Clusters comprised perhaps a dozen persons, mainly in provincial universities and research institutes, and normally one patron at the Sorbonne. They were integrated through publications, examinations, research funds, and especially influence which the patron could exercise over appointments. Subordination of cluster members to the patron was maintained by the principle of monopoly whereby the patron was left free to dominate his particular realm. Relationships among patrons in zerosum situations were regulated by a balance of exchange of favors. The stability of the system would often break down patrons retired. Succession to leadership by a younger cluster member could maintain continuity; or assumption of the central chair by the leader of a new cluster was often the means to institutionalize intellectual innovation. Potential cluster leaders would traditionally compete through completion of a theoretical and programmatic Doctorat d'Etat. Those seeking to join a cluster would link their narrower studies to the patron's program. The cluster pattern thus discouraged middle range theories. General cultural patterns of authority helped maintain the cluster, but were not sufficient. Comparison with Germany and the U.S. suggests that structural prerequisites to the cluster were a) centralization of control, b) the monopolistic character of the system with its absence of competition among institutions, c) the small number of central posts, and d) inflated status-sets of patrons.

Jean-Paul Courtheoux : The notion of activity according to statistical custom. A study of the usual criteria of activity, of situations of uncertain activity and of levels of activity. The criteria of activity are, to be precise, the 1) intentional, 2) integrated, 3) professional, and 4) payment nature of the activity. Situations of uncertain activity occur in the case of limited, beginning, interrupted, contested, and falsified activity. The levels of activity, according to the French statistical custom make it possible to distinguish clearly between the working active population, the active population properly speaking, the available active population, the marginal active population and the maximal active population. The conclusion deals with the question of international normalisation of the definitions of activity and with the problem of the evolution of fundamental research about the size and the factors of activity. Thus it is owing to a restitutional factor that economy compensates for the loss of active population by recruiting new categories of active people.

Robert Castel : Questioning the institution. Following the analysis of some of the most significant psychiatric or psychoanalytical works recently published which question the institutional organization of mental medicine, our study uses the evidence given by the agents who are professionnally concerned in bringing out the extra-medical stakes of the crisis. In order to do this we clearly distinguish between a psycho-sociology of the psychiatric establishment dealing with the internal organization, the traditions, the professional practices etc., and a sociology of the psychiatric institution within a theoretical frame that considers the psychiatric system in general as a power and social control apparatus. This direction must be priviledged since it makes it possible to go beyond the psychiatric rationalizations and to tackle the objective functions assumed by mental medicine.

Olivier Carre : An attempt at a content analysis of religious school textbooks. The content analysis used to examine the political and social doctrines of Egyptian textbooks dealing with moslem religious education is that of combinatory conceptual analysis. It consists in tracing out the combinatory career of each concept throughout the whole corpus: ? to what other concepts such and such concepts are or not related? ? what sort of relationships take place between such and such concepts? ? which priviledged logical positon is filled by each concept thoughout its carrer? The three logical positions taken into consideration are: first term, intermediate term, and last term. This particular theoretical frame of analysis enables us to grasp the logical structure of the whole argumentation in the textbooks, and most of all to answer the question: what sort of synthesis results from the combination of islamic concepts with concepts which in themselves are non- islamic? Several examples illustrate a typology of the synthetic value of the concepts in use, of the themes (bundles of concepts) and of the whole corpus.