Contenu du sommaire

Alfred Sauvy : The boat. The reduction in French fertility, related to that in other Western countries, results from deep causes, from a change in collective mentality. For more than ten years now, the entire legislation is directed against children. Even stronger indirect effects are added to its direct ones, for the population has received the impression that society no longer welcomes children. Consequences are all the more serious inasmuch as this movement is slow, gradual and heavy with inertia. After a euphoric period, demographic againg will be felt materially through heavier charges. Morally and politically, its consequences will be still more serious and, after a certain point, irreversible. Public consciousness needs to be awakened.

George Weisz : French Academics and the ideology of University reform, 1860-1885. The modernization of French higher education during the last decades of the 19th century was largely the product of a widespread movement of reform originating within the academic community. The dissatisfaction of professors began to emerge after a period of ruthless educational repression during the 1850's and intensified as a result of the German victory of 1870 and the Church-State conflict. German educational models played a major though ambiguous role in mobilizing reform sentiment which was divided on many issues between corporative-bureaucratic and liberal orientations. The idea of universities acted as an amorphous symbol for all the disparate demands being raised. It also became an expression of the desire for social and political unity under the Third Republic, and thus enabled reformers to gain the support of influential political leaders.

Mohamed Cherkaoui and James Lindsey : Measures of social classes : the paradigm of the continuous and a model for relational thinking. This article proposes going beyond the sterile controversy between theories of stratification and of classes by placing the reader on the level of the meta- theory of their logical conditions and on the level of the instruments which they have produced. The author analyzes instruments for measuring social classes, which are reduced to three representative kinds : Warner's index of status characteristics, North's and Hatt's prestige scale and Duncan's socio-economic index. Each of these three types of measures is subjected to an examination which brings out serious methodological flaws and the sometimes inacceptable theoretical postulates behind them. Moroever, a proof is made that the paradigm of the continuous, which underlies these measures, results in failures and constitutes an obstacle to a form of knowledge which is sociologically more important. Finally, two new models for complementary analysis are proposed. They use, again, the fundamental idea of relations between classes and make it operational; an idea which, till now, has been more a pious wish than a principle for effective analysis. While reducing the postulates of the above mentioned paradigm, these models permit deducing a larger number of propositions.

Michel Voisin : Utopian communes and social structures : the case of French-speaking Belgium. Drawn from a Doctor's thesis, this article attempts to place in perspective a recent cultural phenomenon (utopian communes) and the social structures of French-speaking Belgium. By studying the evolution, during the last fifteen years, in the Catholic Church and in certain typical professions among the "new small bourgeoisie" (nurses, primary school teachers, etc.), this article endeavors to point out the respective interests and strategies of each social group which participates in this phenomenon. It shows how the congruence of these interests has been able, with the help of the 'institutional crisis' during the 60s, to cause people to pass to the utopian act. Deliberately choosing to study the occurrence rather than reoccurrences, the author examines the significance and the social functions of utopian religious orientations which characterize the new small bourgeoisie, of which the phenomenon of communes would only be one manifestation.

Jean-Marc Dutrenit: Medical function and social work at the psychiatric hospital. The lack of agreement in the scientific community about the etiology of mental sicknesses legitimates the sociological postulate emitted by contemporary psychiatric currents concerning social determination. The analysis of the discourses of the five major types of existing currents and of some quantified social facts which characterize them permits establishing that their origin is in the progressive automation of social work vis-à-vis medical duties within hospitals. An important corollary follows: what is called 'social control' can be explained in terms of the division of labor by the slow appearance of a new group of specialists (social workers, ergotherapists, sociotherapeutic nurses) who professionalize its domain of intervention. This new domain is that of the personality and of social apprenticeships, opposed de facto to that of medical nosography. This method of analysis seems to have to complete the functionalist methods often held in honor in this speciality.

Evelyne Pisier-Kouchner : Sociological perspectives and theory of the state : remarks about an article by Pierre Birnbaum. P. Birnbaum's analysis of the Durkheimian concept of the State gives rise to some reticence. On the one hand, saying that Durkheim had some kind of 'Hegelian' conception of the State ? in order to throw light upon his 'corporatism' and his refusal of civil service unionism ? seems incorrect. On the other hand, the way Durkheim's and Duguit's works are compared is questionable. There is, in fact, more continuity than rupture. Finally, sharing Birnbaum's optimism about the actual protection of civil servant unionism by administrative jurisprudence seems impossible.