Contenu du sommaire

Philippe Garigue : Remarks on a social science policy. Because of the present evolution of the social sciences, the author insists on the fact that research must orient its efforts toward a prospective view of the future. This will allow, at the level of social reality, the integration of the specificity of facts, such as the universality of structures.

Jacques Maitre : Investigations on French religious attitudes. Since 1944 several polls, covering the whole of France, have dealt with religion. A study based on this experience and a pilot investigation show the difficulties which are encountered when one proceeds from the statistics of « opinions » to the reconstruction of « attitudes ». The example of methods of scalable analysis (such as the Guttman scale) shows the place that must be allocated to the algebra of structures. In conclusion, the complexity of religious life shows that investigations must conform to severe standards and that cooperation between research specialists of different backgrounds is necessary.

André Davidovitch : Criminality and repression in France between 1851 and 1955. The author insists on the necessity of a scientific analysis of the influence of systems of sanctions and their degree of use, on the development of criminality. However, only the most general aspects are considered, namely, the correlative variations in the abandonment of prosecutions and in the volume of cases treated by penal courts. The proportion of abandonments increases unceasingly; the proportional number of cases judged consequently decreases; and the number of cases judged tends to increase more quickly than the population. The author points out, however, that such general data characterizes only the surface of the evolution of the phenomena studied. Nevertheless, it can play the useful role of a numerical referent while the next phase of research is awaited.