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Since 1945 and by a relatively continuous way, social geography expands at the University of Lyon. It come to Abel Chatelain, in the first place, to have called attention to a « sociological geography » both founded upon his own practice of demogeography and the reading of the « psychological geography » by George Hardy and « social geography » by Pierre George. But it comes mainly to Renée Rochefort to have illustrated this new orientation even if her first phenomenological approach leads towards more radical positions which, today, appear those of her pupils within the C.R.E.G.S.

The purpose of this paper is to explicite the present revival of interest for social geography in France. Three reasons can be put forward : the necessity of a right understanding of social problems ; the attention drawn to the social dimensions of geographical facts ; the curiosity towards the meaning of socio-spatial patterns. And it is, through these three points of view tightly connected, that the unity of social geography is defined.

Even if it is less strong than formerly in developped countries, social classes still take a main part in social geography, and changes in production processes modify social partners and their functions. But State which is not out of society but secreted by it, exercises a decesive influence through its privileged relations with some social categories as well as through its will of normalization or its rules of social help. However cultural representations and cultural practices should not be excluded. We have to know how cultural and prevealing patterns are assimilited and reinterpreted or refused by the various cultures of social groups or groups of age.

Rural geography deals with space occupied by countries and little towns linked to them. The peasant society which built this space for centuries is disorganized by the rapid expansion of the urban society, since the beginning of the fifties, with the heavy economic growth. The very question which is submitted by the rural milieu to rural geography is this one : is an indigenous development possible ? This study takes into consideration industrialized countries. The peasant society gave to countrymen irreductible characteristics. We find them blocking any kind of evolution in the traditional societies. They justify the originality of the progressive countries, which assumed modernism, while keeping their identity. They did not disappear in countries where, for ideological or economic reasons, efforts have been developed to eliminate peasantry.

societies are becoming common with the arrival of new citizens without a real trade qualification, when highest social strata are going away. So what is the correspondence between social statute and mobility, and how does mobility play as to cut down social reproduction process, and as to spread urban models ? To understand opening and uniformisation of social classes producted through middle-size towns, an original methodology has been set up and applied in three towns of one regional space : Mâcon, Chalon-sur- Saône, Bourg-en-Bresse. Based on a precise sample of urban structures, an investigation has enabled us to apprehend both spacial and socio-economic mobility of three generations of people, out of 5 % of the urban population, since 1954, and according to four items : demography, economy, society, space. Data are worked out by specific software. Besides, inquiry was included in a pedagogical and scientific purpose for fifth form students.