Contenu du sommaire

Raymond Boudon, Philippe Cibois, Janina Lagneau : Shorter Higher Education and the Traps of Collective Action. When considering the development of enrollment in higher education in France, we observe that the attempt to shorten studies by introducing new institutions, the University Institutes of Technology (IUT), has not been crowned with success. In effect, the number of IUT students represents only a small percentage of those in higher education. This failure can be explained neither by the poor quality of instruction, since it is up to standards, nor by the smallness of incomes earned in later professional life, since these are close, on the average, to those of a large number of students who attend higher education for a much longer time. A possible explanation is that we are facing a phenomenon of collective action with paradoxical effects. Using a very simple model, we can show that the interest of each student, if he calculates his chances for profit, is to choose the long rather than the short cycle of studies. The cause of the IUT's failure, if we take into account some options in the name of which they were created, is to be sought not in culturalist hypotheses, such as a dislike for professional education, but in the result of a game of collective action in which many lose but all hope to win.

Olgierd Kuty : Cultural Orientation and the Medical Profession : The Therapeutic Relationship in an Artificial Kidney Unit. The author searches for the independent variables at the origin of structures which he discovered within four medical units concerned with artificial kidneys. Two of these were Belgian ; two, French. Two types of structures appear, basically characterized by the following three traits : the more or less great homogeneization of the statute of the patients ; the differentiating or overlapping of the roles of patients and of professionals; and the kind of relationship with the family. Technology is not at the origin of these differences as Perrow's and Freidson's hypotheses, discussed herein, would have us believe. It is therefore necessary to turn toward the professional culture and extricate two types of orientation, two styles of interactions which characterize the relationships that doctors have with patients as well as those that they have among themselves. The collegial relationship, i.e., between colleagues, seems to play a determining role in structuring the therapeutic relationship. The concept of orientation, which basically emphasizes the degree of dependence and autonomy induced by the relationship, whether therapeutic or collégial, relies on a theory of power in human relationships.

Gabriel Gosselin : Tradition and Traditionalism. Revising our « traditional » conception of « traditional » societies is made necessary by the analysis of endogenous modernization in continuity with traditions. Stereotypes of the uniformity, persistance and coherence of traditions become less and less adequate. We must distinguish the order of values, that of institutions and that of social mechanisms, particularly when analyzing the tradition of others. Seen from the inside, tradition is a culture which considers itself to be a « nature ». In effect, traditionalism represents a conscious choice for tradition which, by itself, is a sign of a radical transformation. It is an ideology of reinterpretation which begins by idealizing tradition. Such a problematic allows us to analyze the utilization of tradition by modernization and vice-versa. Thus are distinguished various forms of traditionalism : fundamental, instrumental, formal, material. The diversity of situations can then be interpreted in all their richness. Some examples are given.

Guy Michelat : On Using Nondirective Interviews in Sociology. The nondirective interview offers specific advantages when compared to the use of a questionnaire. Its utilization relies on the hypothesis that a relationship exists between the depth reached with and the degree of freedom allowed to the person being questioned. It aims at producing symptomatic information that reveals interiorized cultural models. The usual analysis of content (Berelson) is not satisfactory for such interviews, especially inasmuch as it destroys the system of relationships that can be established at a particular individual's level of discourse. On the contrary, the proposed type of analysis consists of trying to find « reasonings » which underlie manifest content by starting with interpretations, surinterpretations and constructions (analogy with psychoanalysis).

Jacques Maitre : The Sociology of Ideology and the Nondirective Interview, a Reading Note. The use of nondirective interviews in the sociology of ideology raises epistemological and methodological problems studied in reference to Marxism and psychoanalysis. At the epistemological level, ideology is differentiated from scientific knowledge on a basis drawn up by Jean Piaget ; it is situated in the field of social processes as presented in Louis Althusser's theory ; it is located within the field of individual subjectivity in a work by Willy Baranger ; finally, the place of ideology in the articulation of these two fields is precisely exemplified in the field of religion. The research strategy corresponding to this theoretical schema begins with recognizing epistemological obstacles in order to define the procedures for operationalization, then those of interpretation. In conclusion, the nondirective interview seems to be a choice instrument for technically equipping such a strategy.