Ordres socio-économiques et polarisation de la recherche dans l'agriculture : pour une critique des rapports science/société

What if farming were the exemplar of a knowledge-based society? Due to their many, ambivalent effects, research and innovation in agronomy lie at the center of trends now shaping the world of agriculture. To present this history, the types of pairing are examined between, on the one hand, processes for producing scientific knowledge and techniques and, on the other, contingent forms for organizing collective action. For this purpose, the notion of a “socioeconomic order” is introduced to account for the multiplication of collective spaces of action based on specific systems of norms and cooperation. Studying these pairings brings to light three “models of polarization of research” in France (the Colbertist model, academic polarization, and fragmented polarization), which have changed over the past fifty years. Accordingly, agriculture's recent history is interpreted as the joint transformation of socioeconomic orders and these modes of polarization. - Special issue on Agriculture and food.     

À propos de l’article de François-Xavier de Vaujany, « Les figures de la gestion du changement sociotechnique »

The approach adopted by François Xavier de Vaujany draws from “structurationist” research in English-speaking social sciences, a current that shares with the sociology of technology a vision of the contextual and negotiated nature of the links between technical and organizational phenomena. Various trajectories in the way organizations use new information and communication technology can be compared; and the role, examined that specific mediators play in the appropriation process. This approach provides stimulating input in discussions about the impact of new technology on organizational change.     

Le temps de l'activité de la caissière : entre logique productive et logique de service

At first sight, the worktime put in by cashiers at checkout counters seems homogeneous, continuous and repetitive. An empirical study of hypermarket cashiers in France shows, on the contrary, that the time spent working is relatively discontinuous and diversified. It is similar to the time on the job put in by semiskilled workers in industry. What characterizes cashiers' work is their having to manage flows of both products and customers. Their worktime can, therefore, be understood as a compromise that comes out of balancing productivity with human relations, a compromise that sometimes causes conflict. By acquiring an “incorporated know-how”, cashiers manage to fill their assignment.     

Le marché comme rencontre d’activités de régulation : initiatives et innovations dans l’approvisionnement bio et local de la restauration collective

How to apply Jean-Daniel Reynaud's theory of social regulation to market relations? When applied to the results drawn from fieldwork on the supplying of organic and local produce to catering businesses serving public institutions in France, this grid of analysis shows that organizing this supply chain involves many activities of regulation. An explanation is provided about how hard existing regulations make it to search for local produce. Two contrasting cases show the degree to which the parties involved can skirt around existing regulations and also, use certain regulations to construct new ones. The innovative regulations that enter into application are qualified as being “joint”, since they stem from the efforts of the parties in catering and in agriculture to agree about how to organize transactions, which had previously been done through the work of market middlemen. In that case, instead of reasoning in terms of a pre-existing supply and demand, we have to understand how supply and demand gradually take shape through the process of working out regulations.     

Embracing and Resisting Ethnoracial Boundaries: Second‐Generation Immigrant and African‐American Students in a Multicultural University1

The transformation of college campuses related to the growing presence of minority youth and the arrival of second‐generation immigrants offers opportunities for exploring the formation of social and cultural boundaries and ethnoracial identities in local multicultural contexts. Absent from many discussions of the merits of multicultural college settings is specification of the interactional processes and cultural transformations that presumably lie at the heart of diversity payoffs. This project focuses on students from four minority groups, three of whom are second‐generation immigrants, in a racially diverse university, combining focus groups and in‐depth interviews. First, we analyze how the social mixing practices of students congeal into ethnoracial boundaries on campus. We find that two images of multiculturalism (“fragmented pluralism” and “interactive pluralism”) play out simultaneously on this campus. Second, we examine the pathways leading to more insular ethnoracial mixing and toward more heterogeneous social mixing, as well as explore the cultural meanings of these practices in student narratives. We also compare the influence of campus context, student agency, and internal and external group pressures on varying degrees of student satisfaction with their achieved social worlds.     

À l'école de la détention : quelques aspects de la socialisation professionnelle des surveillants de prison

Their first period of training in penitentiaries provided an opportunity for studying the occupational socialization of French prison wardens. Although the latter soon learn certain aspects of life behind the bars, their talk manifests a mistrust of both the training situation and prison in general. By combining class work outside the detention center and experiences with handling inmates inside, this training presents new recruits with the contradictory admonitions of trainers and corrections officers. A double bind thus complicates learning this trade: whether to follow suggestions about imposing order or to negotiate; whether to accept the penitentiary method or, like the others, consider it to be inefficient or even dangerous. This occupational socialization spawns dilemmas and contradictions; it does not peacefully transmit a predefined occupational role.     

Reflective Teaching in Social Work Education: Findings from a Participatory Action Research Study

This article describes a feminist-informed reflective teaching project enacted by a group of social work faculty at Texas State University–San Marcos. Utilizing Schon's notion of reflection-in-action, faculty formed a participatory action research group to implement reflective techniques to further their professional development as new teachers and better prepare social work students for practice in the social work profession. This project guided the participants in establishing academic identity through the creation of a supportive academic setting and peer collegiality. The group met monthly to share reflective teaching journals (RTJs), participate in intergroup dialogue, and engage in contemplative practices, such as meditation and visualization. Methods of data collection and analysis included content analysis of the intergroup dialogue sessions. Findings from the project reinforced Kolb's experiential learning cycle, in which new insights gained from reflection were integrated back into the classroom. This article presents these important insights and suggests replication of this project to promote reflective teaching in social work education and to help prepare new social work faculty for success in academia.     

Les pratiques d’enseignement dans l’université de masse : les premiers cycles universitaires se scolarisent-ils ?

The practices of faculty members who teach courses during the freshman and sophomore years in universities are described at a time when the French system of higher education is becoming more dualistic and when we increasingly hear that the indicators of academic failure—especially high during these 2 years—must be brought down. After presenting the concepts of a “scholastic” and an “academic” transmission of knowledge and teacher-student relationship, a survey in the field is used to test the hypothesis of a “scholarization” of the diploma (DEUG) obtained after these 2 years. There are, indeed, trends toward this “scholarization”, which is described: both its generalized expressions (for instance, the psychologization of practices) and its variations by discipline. However, they are still superficial and not very effective. They are superposed on a strong orientation toward research and the reproduction of researchers. Ultimately, members of the faculty teach while considering that the first 2 years of higher education correspond to a phase of latency.     

FOR MONEY OR GLORY? COMMERCIALIZATION,COMPETITION, AND SECRECY IN THE ENTREPRENEURIAL UNIVERSITY

Scholars have grown concerned that the commercialization of academic science is increasing secrecy at the expense of cooperation and information sharing. Using data from comparable surveys of academic scientists in three fields (experimental biology, mathematics, and physics), we test whether scientists have become more competitive and more secretive over the last 30 years. We also use the recent survey to test a multivariate model of the effects of scientific competition and commercialization (patenting, industry funding, and industry collaboration) on scientific secrecy. We find that secrecy has increased, and has increased particularly for experimental biologists. Only 13 percent of experimental biologists in 1998 felt safe discussing their ongoing research with all others doing similar work. Our multivariate analysis shows that this secrecy is most related to concerns about being anticipated (scientific competition). We find that patenting is associated with increased secrecy among mathematicians and physicists, but not for experimental biologists. We find that industry funding is associated with more secrecy, while industry collaboration is associated with less secrecy, across fields. Our results suggest that the recent concern over increasing scientific secrecy has merit. However, this increased secrecy seems to result from a combination of increasing commercial linkages and increased pressures from scientific competition. Our research highlights the central role that scientists' competition for priority plays in the system of science and that, while such competition spurs effort, it also produces negative effects that recent trends toward commercialization of academic science seem to be exacerbating.     

Pour une approche sociologique de la comptabilité Réflexions à partir de la réforme comptable chinoise

Based on research on state-run companies in China, the reform of Chinese accountancy is examined so as to show the advantages of a sociological approach to accounting. How can bookkeeping interest sociologists? First of all, it has come out of struggles between various parties and addresses social issues. Secondly, it conveys models of reality, in particular of what is and is not a firm. Thirdly, it produces history in that it shapes economic practices and expectations. Finally, there is a high degree of coherence between the bookkeeping system, the form of a firm, the operation of the economy and the management of social questions. These various points turn accountancy into a legitimate subject of study for sociology and provide an interesting approach to analyzing broader phenomena and processes.     

Deaf and hard of hearing faculty in higher education: enhancing access,equity, policy,and practice

Higher education institutions are often well prepared in terms of accommodation policies and practices for disabled students. Ironically, campuses are often not prepared once disabled academics return as faculty. Most are particularly unfamiliar with the unique access needs of deaf or hard of hearing academics. This can result in career hindrances to employment and tenure, as well as potential losses to campuses in terms of diversity. Background and substantiation on this access issue is provided along with recommendations for policy-making and practices for campuses that are geared to ensuring career success for deaf and hard of hearing faculty.     

Unsettling Universities' Incongruous,Gendered Bureaucratic Structures: A Case‐study Approach

Recent research shows that women faculty members in academia continue to face systemic barriers to opportunity and advancement and that these barriers are particularly strong in science and engineering, and in university administration. University administrators and faculty members, however, have been slow to recognize that systemically gendered barriers will have to be reduced or eliminated in order for women faculty to advance in their careers. One key problem is that many, if not most, leaders in powerful decision‐making roles in universities continue to embrace women‐centred explanations for gender disparities in advancement through the academic ranks. University leaders' lack of recognition of institutionalized gender barriers suggests the need for greater dissemination of research findings (and training) about how systemic barriers operate and why these barriers disproportionately disadvantage women. In this article I first theorize universities as incongruous, gendered bureaucratic structures. I then outline an intervention strategy for enabling university faculty members and administrators to see incongruous, gendered bureaucratic structures and to then use this knowledge to develop strategies for addressing the problem of women's underrepresentation among science and engineering faculty. The strategy described is a case‐study approach recently implemented at a mid‐sized research‐intensive university in the US Midwest. The workshop was part of a broader university programme aimed at transforming the university's cultures, practices and structures in ways that help to enhance the recruitment, retention and promotion of women scientists. I conclude by discussing the benefits and limitations of the case‐study approach as a method for unsettling accepted knowledge about the gendered structures and normative practices of the university.     

Écrire l’incertitude. Le travail à bord des navires de commerce entre stabilisations,prises de risques et responsabilisations

Because of the many sources of uncertainty and opportunities for separation between sailors and the ship, work on board a merchant ship requires a panoply of tools that contribute to the continuity of activity and the identification of active agents. Writing is one of these instruments. Observation of the ship's different written media reveals the difficulty and, at the same time, the need for this organization to be maintained. They reveal the existence of a particular connection between land and sea, while raising issues of responsibility.     

Les ajustements de la technique médicale face aux règles de droit

During the 1990s, partly as a result of accusations of medical malpractice, doctors’ obligations were reinforced; and patients’ rights, recognized. In a lawsuit brought on the grounds of liability, the doctor and his/her qualifications are accused; and the doctor's identity and sense of professional honor, affected. This has serious risks for medical practices and, more broadly, medicine. This research based on interviews with doctors shows that the specialty, type of practice and nature of the establishment expose doctors to more or fewer risks and thus partly determine how they adjust techniques to cope with the risks of a lawsuit. The professional identity (including the values and practices to which interviewees referred) and the consciousness of their symbolic status (related to the place and type of practice) are keys for understanding practitioners’ behaviors. Assuming that a doctor's sense of professional identity is shaped by his/her sense of responsibility, relations with patients and concern for achievement, it is hypothesized that these three dimensions and their possible combinations explain the adjustments, or lack thereof, made by doctors.     

À la recherche d’une politique biomédicale en France : chronique d’une réforme inaboutie en cancérologie

This article proposes to explore research administration practices in the analysis of the spread of biomedicine in France. This approach, combined with an analytical positioning inspired by the sociology of organisations, brings an additional element to conventional approaches to biomedicine, since it helps to identify constraints other than those associated with the scientific and clinical practices themselves. Drawing on empirical observation of the development of contemporary policy on cancer research, we will show the crucial influence of the distribution of power between the different stakeholders involved in developing public processes for promoting biomedical practices.     

University‐Industry Relationships in Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences: The Role of Women Faculty*

Abstract An increasing amount of research has been dedicated to studying university‐industry relationships (UIRs). Researchers have studied the impacts of UIRs on the integrity of university research. However, while studies have examined the attitudes and actions of university administration and industry leaders with respect to UIRs, limited attention has been devoted to the attitudes and actions of women faculty. Drawing on feminist epistemology and academic capitalism research, we develop and test four hypotheses about gender and UIRs. We use Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) and data from a nationwide survey of land‐grant agricultural and life scientists to examine perceptions of UIRs and individual‐level ties to private industry among male and female faculty in different academic disciplines. Although we find no significant gender differences in perceptions of UIRs, our results indicate women have fewer ties to industry compared to men when controlling for individual‐and discipline‐level characteristics. In particular, industry funding of scientific research and consulting for private firms appear to disproportionately favor men over women. We also find that discipline‐level industry ties influence scientists' attitudes and industry linkages, suggesting the existence of different disciplinary cultures with respect to UIRs. We recommend researchers, policymakers, and others interested in understanding the growth of academic capitalism, as well as the gender gap in science, pursue more in‐depth investigation of the interaction between gender, academic discipline, and UIRs.     

Presidential Address: The Faculty Time Divide

The time demands of academic life are examined, drawing on data from a large national sample of faculty. I outline the divide between full-time faculty, who work long hours irrespective of rank or institution type, and part-time faculty, who work at low pay with little job security, status, recognition, or fringe benefits. The expectations of academic life in dual-career couples are hard to reconcile with the demands of parenting. This is a common problem because assistant professors are generally too old to wait until they have tenure to have children. The segmentation of academic life into an overworked core and a marginalized periphery tends to perpetuate gender inequality.     

Les apories de la solidarité familiale Contribution à la sociologie des configurations de justice entre les familles et l’État, dans le cas français

Despite its many meanings, “solidarity” has once again become current in French to describe macro as well as microsocial relations. Social relations in and outside the family have not always been understood as instances of solidarity. But is this solidarity the same as the one established by the welfare state? Forms of family solidarity that have risen in esteem over the past two decades are “deconstructed”. The conditions for family solidarity are examined; and conceptual paradoxes, described. This approach suggests that family solidarity, as this concept is normally used, mixes together several systems of justice that should be clearly distinguished, especially if we want to put this phrase to a judicious social use.     

From Affirmative Action to Diversity: Critical Reflections on Graduate Education in Sociology

This article explores the contradictory results of the shift from a race‐conscious affirmative action discourse to a broader “diversity embrace” that advocates tolerance, equality, and respect for cultural differences on university campuses. Drawing on critical race theory and research on the practice of affirmative action in organizations, we argue that the diversity embrace subsumes recognition of racialized histories, social relations, and practices in favor of a “color‐blind” rhetoric that reinforces negative assumptions about the academic merit and worthiness of underrepresented minority students (URM). Our review of the status and condition of URM graduate students in sociology departments reveals that minority inclusion is part of a larger strategy that emphasizes individual and group differences rather than corrective action for past discrimination. We find that access and inclusion in graduate programs in sociology have been uneven with relatively few departments producing a majority of URM sociology doctorates. The diversity embrace obscures their continual low representation in graduate programs, fosters professionalization practices detrimental to these students, and undermines efforts to create a “critical mass” of faculty of color. Such practices constitute a racial project that preserves White privilege at the individual and institutional levels.     

From probation to prevention: protecting college students and workers from animal hazards

OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to develop an organized system to assess individual and group exposure to animal hazards on a college campus. MAIN POINTS: The scope and complexity of college health services continue to expand as campuses confront unforeseen exposures and disease entities. Of great concern are students and faculty who are exposed to potentially life threatening and other serious conditions during their academic work. CONCLUSION: A college health service developed an effective animal-hazard surveillance questionnaire that could be scanned and analyzed for individual and group exposure to hazards and the presence or absence of protective measures. The college then provided appropriate preventive services.