Contenu du sommaire

Compared with real clothing, as it is presented and commented upon in specialized publications, fashion clothing has the advantages of betraying explicit meanings in which the 'significants' are distinct from the 'signifiés', in opposition to what happens in linguistic language. The author suggests and comments upon a methodological itinerary destined to establish the main classes of forms and of significant features of contemporary women's fashion clothing (synchrony fixed to one year). He concludes by showing the advantage of such an inventory, which might permit the reduction of fashion ? a mythical and inexhaustible realm ? to a finite number of recurring forms.

The notion of "optimal price", as it can be determined from an enquiry among a sample of would-be consumers for new products about to be launched on the market. The author shows the interest of such a research from the point of view of the social psychology of consumer's attitudes.

The social origin of schoolmasters is as a whole lower than of their female colleagues, but the former have often benefited from a better professional training. On the other hand, vocation and satisfaction seem greater among schoolmistresses. This sense of professional success is strengthened for a large number of them by the fact that they are raised in social status through marriage. This possibility being unavailable to men, there are many more schoolmasters than schoolmistresses who endeavour to improve their socio-professional status, either by taking advantage of every possibility of promotion inside their profession, or by trying to find elsewhere a more satisfying career from a moral and material point of view.