Contenu du sommaire

Pierre Bourdieu : The Future of a Class and Causality of the Probable. Practices depend, not on the generically possible chances of profit available at a given moment to any agent whatsoever, but on the objective chances which his capital guarantees at a particular moment to a definite class of agents. Furthermore, in the cases considered herein, durable attitudes tend to anticipate these objective chances in very practical ways. More precisely, practices depend on the structure of the differential chances of profit which are open to this class, given the volume and nature of its capital, and consequently on the system of strategies that aims at maintaining or improving the position of this class in the social structure.

Olgierd Lewandowski : Differentiation within and Integration into the Ruling Class: The Social Profile of the Elite on the Basis of Persons Chosen from Who's who in France. This article draws a picture of the 1968 French elite based on a study of 1500 persons chosen at random from among the 20,000 listed in Who's Who in France. By comparing different sectors according to the variables of a member's social origins, his scholastic level and his birthplace (for Parisians as a subgroup), we first notice that a compensation exists between these three. For example, one sector is ahead in terms of social origins, another in terms of scholastic background, yet a third in terms of nativity at Paris. However, members of Parliament were at the bottom of all hierarchies. What's more, those persons who change sectors usually have a social origin better than that in the sector they are leaving and an educational level higher than that in the sector they are entering. We can partly explain most intersector transfers as a matter of the more and more frequent use of «scholastic capital» in the control of economic activity. Because of the development of different sectors from crafts into industries, the growing role of the means of production in relationship to work has involved an increasing use of intellectual capital in the control of the means of production. Moreover, this development augments the interdependence of different sectors, the concentration of power in each sector and the homogenization of the leaders of the different sectors. In France, this process of integration at the top is linked to the strong concentration of activity in Paris.

Charles Suaud : An Article on Vocational Sociology: Religious Destiny and Educational Plans. The resarch on which this article is based concerns the sacerdotal vocations of children recruited between ten and thirteen years of age in the small seminaires of a rural department of western France, La Vendée. Studies of this sort of vocation have analyzed how a school's plan for social mobility becomes a matter of « religious destiny » among the social classes which are objectively excluded from such mobility (At present, these classes include peasants, craftsmen, artisans and small, rural merchants) . Accordingly, the « vocational crisis » is explained as the result of competition between school and seminary. The lengthening of obligatory schooling and the diffusion of middle schools mean that any plan for a professional career can no longer be thought of, even among the rural masses, outside of the school system.

Dominique Schnapper : Museums and Schools. This study deals with the kind of public which came to the Louvre in order to see the eight works of Picasso exhibited on his 90th birthday in November 1971. Although the exposition, because of its unusual and publicized nature, attracted persons who do not ordinarily go to museums, most visitors belonged to the « upper classes », not to all parts of these classes but especially to the « cultivated » ones, such as teachers, students and artists, who frequently visit museums. A correlation exists between going to a museum and being in or part of a school system. Museums are an extension of the scholastic world, and those who go there often belong, provisionally or definitively, to that world.