Contenu du sommaire : Rites et seuils, passages et continuités.

From the rites of transition to the "first times” an endless experimentation In this paper, the process of transition to adult age is considered through its rites. The rites of transition which organised and formalised this process in the past have let the place to a more progressive transition based on informal and eventually reversible proceedings scattered with punctual risks. These •first times” do not necessarily open the way neither to a fertile phase of experimentation nor to the progressive construction of social maturity. They maintain a status of individual in transition and hardly conceal the groping way of transition to adult age.

Recourse to rite or nostalgia of a bygone time : the example of the military service Facing some young people‚ s erratic behaviours, some discourses appeal to rites to interpret or to solve this problem. Based on the example of the military service, the paper shows how the issue of youth rituals has changed and why looking back with nostalgia should be avoided at the risk of contributing to the loss of meaning that seems to guide young people. The decline of conscription as a ritual of passage can be analysed with regard to the temporal changes affecting the life course, to the temporal biographies becoming more flexible, at the opposite of what the idea of threshold of age embodied previously.

The BAFA, a ritualised entry in the adult world The BAFA trainee "plays" to be alternatively the child he was yesterday, the youth worker he will be tomorrow, the children he will have to cope with, the adult that the organising institution, even the society, hopes he is. In these multiple -educational, psychological and social constructions, the BAFA trainee operates as a threshold materialising the youth transition towards adult responsibilities and even future parenthood.

Violence in girls and boys relationships Many researchers and professionals analyse the collective rapes through the emergence of a new sexuality and as a ritual of passage for some young people. How is it considered by the girls and boys concerned ? This paper questions the meaning of their relationships and highlights the strategies of survival they develop in their district.

Will the first time be also the last one ? Trajectories of de-cohabitation and pathways to adult age Because youth transition to adult age is no more realised on the pattern of •rite of passage” but rather constitutes the outcome of successive •first times”, de-cohabitation cannot be understood as the irrefutable sign of passage to adult life and must be studied within the framework of trajectories, some being •direct” and others made of departures and returns. Based on a longitudinal survey carried out in 1995 among young people aged 18 to 24 at the time, we will try to determine which types of trajectories lead to the first and also the last de-cohabitation for some young people and which trajectories are successive episodes of re-cohabitation.

Sport and sectarian drifts Considered by sociologists as socially much debated movements opposed to modernity and to the community they come from, sects and sect oriented movements can invest in sport in the aim to attract some fractions of the sporting youth. Because sport can be easily diverted from its educational functions, the sporting world is not safe from sectarian drifts and attempts of entrance. Examples such as the use of football by the Moon sect, the sectarian use of the body in methods of personal blossoming, scout drifts and the use of charismatic sportsmen to seduce a marginal youth show the relevance of an approach aiming at analysing the social mechanisms of training and functioning of sect oriented groups in the sporting world

Expression of religious membership at school in France and england The author deals with issues raised by the expression of religious membership at school and focuses on Muslim pupils attending national school in France and England. Among several V. O. problems, beyond the wearing of a scarf at school, above all there are dispensations for religious reasons implying that the expression of religious belonging is at stake for the secular tradition of the country. In England, beyond the state financing Muslim schools, the question concerns above all the content of religious teaching and the systematic claims for a better consideration of the religious needs in the British educational system.

Precariousness at the heart of discourses and practices The Youth Employment programme has been implemented since 1997 in France in order to fight against youth unemployment. The texts of law announced an innovative measure that did not rely on integration or training but on the professional and perennial status of the new created activities. Approaching the end of the disposal, it seems that the question of precariousness is not yet settled for youth employment. The case of the agents of social mediation analysed in this paper, shows the difficulties and the instability young people with aided contracts have to face.