Recruteurs sous tensions. Discrimination et diversité au prisme de registres argumentaires enchevêtrés

While most studies on discriminatory practices in recruitment identify them with a single set of motives, this article, based on 57 interviews with recruiters from different sectors, seeks to provide an alternative analytical framework. The requirements for fairness in the recruitment process are taken seriously and used to describe an experience of recruitment that entails grappling with contradictory demands, some related to economic efficiency, others to social justice. Recruiters have to balance these requirements. And whether or not recruitment is discriminatory depends on how the balance is struck and the social and organisational constraints that affect it.     

La constitution d'une élite du Welfare dans la France des années 1990

A neo-elitist interpretation of the relations between the governmental and administrative elites helps us understand new power relations at the top of the French state. Light is shed on the formation, during the last twenty years, of a “welfare state elite”, which has arisen around decision-making in the social service sector. An analysis of changes in social policies shows how an elite that has shared the same purposes in collective action has gradually asserted its identity as a group. With a very coherent view of public policies and of relations with the authorities exercising oversight (Cour des Comptes, IGAS), this elite has proven capable of exercising a strong influence over policy-making. Its institutionalization is corroborated by the long careers in this sector that lead to controlling professional know-how. In brief, a unified elite has arisen that might well leave lasting marks on the future of the French welfare state.     

Le SAT et l’accès aux études supérieures : le recrutement des élites américaines en question

James Conant developed the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) in the 1930s in line with thought about the mobility of elites, a subject that many American as well as European intellectuals were discussing. This test, now used for the admission of high school graduates to universities, was to be a means for detecting talented youngsters and, in fine, producing a model of society. Nowadays, the SAT has a value as a means of effectively comparing students nationwide; but in practice, it serves to reproduce a certain social elite. Far from measuring pure intelligence disconnected from culture, it has turned into a commodity advantageous to certain social groups and ethnic communities.     

Dénoncer en justice les discriminations syndicales : contribution à une sociologie des appuis conventionnels de l’action judiciaire

This article examines the rise in court cases relating to discrimination against trade union workers in France since the late 1990s. It seeks to identify sources of support for victims of discrimination to help them file complaints before the Courts. The judicialization of union-related discrimination cases was made possible by a new discourse that links the recognition of individual merit and the common cause of re-unionization. The development of a special method of proof and the specialization of certain union actors and lawyers have helped make legal action against discrimination routine. But the historical roots of this strategy raise the question of how it can be applied to workers in secondary labor markets, particularly precarious workers.     

La barrière et le plafond de vitrail. Analyser les carrières féminines dans les organisations religieuses

Research conducted mainly in the United States and France on how ordination works like a barrier to the feminization of religious staffs in various Christian and Jewish organizations has brought to light factors for distinguishing several cases: women either gain formal access to religious offices, or informally exercise religious duties, or are barred from religious offices. The second part of this article examines the level in these organizations where this barrier has been lifted, in particular the dissymmetries between men's and women's careers. Emphasis is laid on comparisons with other professions, since similar processes operate underneath the religious sphere's apparent differences, as reflected by the phrase “stained-glass ceiling”.     

Gérer la qualité de l’eau : singularisation, évaluation et régime de gouvernement

The April-June 2002 issue of Sociologie du Travail opened its pages for a discussion of the question of quality. Authors highlighted two mechanisms: “identification/singularization” (a sociotechnical process of co-constructing the quality of goods and services) and evaluation (a process of building up confidence so as to do away with uncertainty about the quality of goods and services). Can these two processes be analyzed together? If so, how to understand their interactions? As the example of managing the water supply and wastewater shows, jointly analyzing these two processes helps us understand the work of “qualification/requalification”. The relation between singularization and evaluation is clarified by introducing the notion of a “regime of government”.     

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.     

Les professionnels du droit comme acteurs du politique : revue critique de la littérature nord-américaine et enjeux pour une importation en Europe continentale

For many years, North-American social sciences have been analyzing legal professionals as political actors, while in Continental Europe the relationship among law, politics, and society has remained under-examined. At the moment, a central project for US sociolegal studies is exporting to other political and legal contexts hypotheses previously tested inside US borders, raising the question of the generalizability and/or the globalization of US socio-legal analyses. After briefly describing why social sciences have been focusing on law and social changes in the United States, this article aims to determine what prerequisites are necessary for exporting sociolegal studies outside the US, devoting particular attention to historically contingent —and nationally-distinct— relations between law, political power and the social sciences.     

Scriptes de la démocratie : les sténographes et rédacteurs des débats (1848-2005)

The history and sociology of a special group of civil servants are presented, namely: stenographers in parliament, an occupation closely tied to the history of parliamentary government in most democracies. During the xixth century, French stenographers proposed their services to legislative bodies. They tested and validated their theoretical systems and know-how while promising to contribute to a much higher public good: the publication of parliamentary proceedings, a necessity for defining and developing democracy. Following a system for recording proceedings that was close to the British liberal model, a corps of stenographers was established in 1848, and then again under the Third Republic-without interruption up till 2004. The duty of these civil servants was to produce the full, official account of parliamentary proceedings, which would serve as proof for the press and for history. Based on original material drawn from sociology and history, this inquiry seeks to see how institutions are shaped, produced and reproduced through the knowledge and deeds that incarnate values and shape institutions. Besides the publication of parliamentary proceedings, the technical, material and social conditions are discussed that led the National Assembly to become a political institution.