Contenu du sommaire

Social integration at university
The socialisation of students in university environments constitutes an important issue both for students leaving secondary schooling, but also for establishments that are concerned with the well-being and success of their students. This article proposes a redefinition of the concept of social integration applied to the university student population, and studies its conditions and effects on undergraduate students. The analysis demonstrates that there are many factors involved in explaining differences in integration between students, and that successful socialisation is an additional indication of greater academic success for certain students.

Youth information : civic socialisation for all young people?
The study of a regional youth information centre aiming to "promote the participation of young people as active members in society” demonstrates the concomitant implementation of several frameworks of participation that can be considered as providing training for different kinds of citizenship. By coming to the centre to access information, or assistance with their projects, and by participating in the activities organised in the centre, many young people develop a sense of legal and civil citizenship. In addition to the opportunities openly provided to all, the centre also identifies and encourages young people who seem likely to be able to invest in managing it. This socialisation to political citizenship is thus socially structured : the young people who are involved in this have a level of education and often an initial experience in active citizenship that allows them to take on the role of administrators.

An invitation to travel
In the wake of several studies analysing periods of overseas study as a constitutive dimension of the lifestyle of dominant classes, this article looks at the ways in which social hierarchies between elite engineering institutions can be seen through the practice of international study. The increase in periods of overseas study covers forms of expatriation that vary greatly in status, which consolidates the pre-eminence of the institutions with the most elitist social and academic recruitment. As social disparities can be seen even within prestigious schools, the international opportunities open to students are heavily dependent on the cultural and economic capital they inherit in their family environments.

Saved by human sciences
Drawing on the case of Seif, a 21-year-old man from an immigrant background, who lives in a housing estate in the suburbs of Paris, this article analyses the role that reading social and human science texts can have in situations of crisis or vulnerability. In the face of an intense family conflict, Seif made this reading into a weapon to understand his situation and to try and save both himself and his family. This also had an impact on his social relationships and his way of being in the world. Through this case study we seek to explore the relationship between human sciences and individual readers who are looking for solutions to their problems in the words and ideas they encounter in these texts. In “situations of emergency”, they can use this knowledge as a veritable guide to existence, even as this usage simultaneously demonstrates the individualisation of social problems.

Becoming a student with cancer
This article aims to look at how a major health event (cancer) can alter adolescents experience of school, by trying to sketch its long-term implications. The study is based on a mixed methodology, including three years of socio-ethnographic research in treatment centres and schools. It demonstrates to what extent the experience of school is shaped by the temporalities of school in the context of a chronic serious illness. In the short-term, the illness is perceived as a parenthesis, but the effects of managing it socially can make it become a disability.

Jill of all trades: underpaid work for young female receptionists
Based on an ethnographic and statistic study of the work done by receptionists, this article connects the characteristics of a position considered unskilled, with the fact that it is often filled through subcontracting, and the social characteristics of the employees who fill it. It demonstrates how the kind of reception, the age of employees and sub-contracting combine to reduce the value of this position. It also looks at receptionists and the range of ways in which they use this job, to identify those who remain in the position long-term. If the task of representing highly stereotyped femininity at work is applicable to a large social range of women, those who become “professional” receptionists are often those who have the lowest levels of social and cultural resources.

Learning about drugs in class
Does describing the effects of psychotropic drugs on the organism, in the context of preventative action programmes, contribute to the construction of their social reality by teaching students what they can expect from using them ? These descriptions are based on a homogenisation of different types of products based on the “active” component, helping to transmit the idea that reasonable consumption is not possible. This normalisation of behaviour allows students to learn elements motivating consumption and associated social norms. But by encouraging students – particularly working-class boys – to tell their stories, these prevention programs contribute to constructing the widespread consumption they aim to prevent.

Young female referees in rugby and football
This article looks at young female referees in football and rugby aged between 15 and 24. It examines their socialisations, dispositions and representations. The analysis of the data collected between 2015 and 2017, by questionnaire and interview do not allow us to validate the hypothesis of atypical gender or inversed socialisation among these girls. On the one hand, they break into sporting fields that are highly masculine and, on the other hand, they choose to take on an exceptional role (that of referee) historically controlled by men. However, their discourses confirm the idea of paradoxical and ambivalent gender relations.