Contenu du sommaire

Benno Sternberg-Sarel : Large and average landowners in two villages in the Hérault. Two Languedoc villages, Saint-Just and Saint-Nazaire de Pezan, were stricken simultaneously by the crisis in the wine trade and by the exceptionally hard frost of 1956. These circumstances have helped to accelerate the movement towards land concentration, the tendency towards an influx of townspeople building weekend houses, the reconversion of large properties, and the adoption of new farming methods. So far the agricultural community has remained passive, but there is a risk of its disintegrating as a result of the capitalistic evolution of these villages. Their only chance of survival seems to consist in cooperative organization.

Placide Rambaud : Elementary sociology for mountain countries. In France the mountain regions have developed in a special way. The old economic and political system had its own rural institutions, but they were soon to be transformed and various new functions created by the introduction of the tourist trade. These changes exerted an influence on all the social structures and they have greatly changed the comportment and attitude of the rural community.

Monique Vincienne : Rural immigration and city life. The author studies some consequences of rural immigration in a small, newly-developing industrial town in the Alps. The social status of the immigrants is influenced by the reasons for their leaving their previous home. These factors often determine comportment and reactions towards city life and choice in the professional, economical, matrimonial and cultural fields. Statistics, demographical and economical data are extremely useful to the sociologist in making a preliminary approach to the subject.