Contenu du sommaire

J.-M. Chapoulie: The Teaching Corps in the Class Structure. The characteristics of the teaching corps in French secondary schools do nothing other than to express the objective relations it has with the class structure. This article analyzes positions taken on secondary educational policies in view of the social status of teachers. Its basis includes various statistics, especially votes in professional associations. The following characteristics of the teaching profession are studied: 1) those resulting from the functions filled by teaching in secondary schools and, in particular, from the authority delegated to teachers; and 2) those originating in the fact that the teaching corps belongs to the intellectual portion of the middle classes. A second part of the article interprets: 1) statistics concerning teacher recruitment during the last forty years; and 2) the effects within the profession of institutional changes associated with a diversification of social and scholastic characteristics among students. The conclusion proposes a framework for analyzing the recruitment and careers of teachers.

J. K. Lindsey et M. Cherkaoui : The Relation between Class Size and Scholastic Success. This article critically examines the popular notion that students' scholastic progress is inversely proportional to the size of their classes. Simultaneously taking into consideration six variables ? scholastic success, class size, sex, social class origins, type of curriculum (classical or modern) and kind of school ? this study combines a regression model of the first three with a covariance analysis involving the last three. Two conclusions emerge. First, in the classical curriculum of secondary schools, the relationship between the number of students in a class and their scholastic success is identical regardless of their social class origins. Second, the opposite holds in the other cases. In fact, success increases with class size for students coming from less favored social classes but usually diminishes for those from the privileged ones. Hypotheses concerning socialization at home and at school can help explain this turnabout.

P. Heraux et M. Novi: A Factorial Study of Ideology: Methodological Problems. The authors strive to make the concept of ideology operational by (1) denning it in a precise field ? as a scale of values manifested in the speeches of mayors when they explain and justify their decisions in cultural affairs ? and by (2) subjecting it to a kind of standardized analysis. A comparison of the limits inherent in various factorial methods and of the theoretical constraints imposed by the object under study have led the authors to deal with data in the form of a matrice of ordinal numbers. They then undertake a Factorial Analysis into Major Component Parts. This method's partial inadequacy with respect to the object and the correction of the resultant technological bias imply a dialectic between the formal method and the problem area.