Responsabilité et identité

This paper presents results of qualitative research on the ethical notion of responsibility in the context of young adults' lives. The author presents an analysis of in-depth interviews with young adults from the Montreal area about their definition of adulthood and individual responsibility. This research reveals the importance of responsibility –defined by the interviewees as concern for others–in the socialization process involved in the passage towards adulthood through professional, residential and family trajectories.
Dans cet article, l'auteur présente quelques résultats d'une enquête d'approche qualitative menée auprès de jeunes adultes de la région montréalaise sur la notion «éthique >> de responsabilité lors du passage à l'âge adulte. Le point de vue des acteurs sur leur définition de l'âge adulte et de la notion de responsabilité individuelle y est présenté. Il est démontré que l'expérience de responsabilité, définie selon les interviewés par le souci pour autrui et la prise d'engagements dans les tra-jectoires familiales, professionnelles et résidentielles, participe au processus de socialisation propre au moment de l'entrée dans l'âge adulte.     

Machinisme, marxisme, humanisme : Georges Friedmann avant et après-guerre

Georges Friedmann (1902-1977) is known as the founder, following WW II, of a “sociology of humanist work”. Before the war, he was a Marxist intellectual, close to the Communist Party, who admired the young Soviet Union. How this political and ideological itinerary affected his sociology of labor, has never been systematically analyzed. To do so, “machinism” (mechanization), a key concept in the first part of Friedmann’s writing, is scrutinized. This concept came not from Marx, but from Michelet’s romantic conception of history, with which Friedmann was familiar. Following the war, it was given up for the pair “natural/technical milieu”; but this shift in vocabulary did not radically alter Friedmann’s views. Questions arise about how the intellectual itinerary of the founder of French labor sociology, who was shaped by the political trauma experienced by his generation, has lastingly affected this discipline.     

Préférences, valeurs et différentiation intraprofessionnelle selon l'origine ethnique

For some time, sociologists have been concerned with the unequal distribution of members of different ethnic groups on the Canadian occupational scale. Using a sample of French- and English-speaking engineers of the city of Montreal, the author tests the hypothesis that their occupational values influence their distribution within the profession. The results of the study suggest that the values of the two ethnic groups are similar; however, their occupational preferences , which reflect social constraints, are more closely linked to their professional situation. In emphasizing the importance of the distinction between values and preferences, the author suggests that a structural approach to intraoccupational distribution would be more fruitful.
La répartition inégale des groupes ethniques sur l'échelle professionnelle canadienne préoccupe les sociologues depuis longtemps. En employant un échantillonnage des ingénieurs francophones et anglophones à Montréal, l'auteur met à l'épreuve l'hypothèse que leurs valeurs professionnelles influent sur leur répartition différentielle au sein de leur profession. Les résultats de l'étude suggèrent que les valeurs des deux groupes ethniques se ressemblent; cependant leurs préférences concrètes qui reflètent les contraintes sociales sont plus étroitement liées à leur situation professionnelle. En soulignant l'importance de la distinction entre les valeurs et les préférences, l'auteur suggère qu'une approche structurelle de la différentiation intraprofessionnelle serait plus fructueuse.     

La contingence et le travail de conception. Définir,organiser, délibérer

The activity of a design office consists in producing plans for things that do not yet exist. If, through poor management, the designers fail to anticipate accurately what the product will be, work will be inappropriately allocated and divided. Given the uncertain nature of the activity and the outcome, designers are simultaneously involved in the process of producing technical solutions, a process of organisation — through constant reallocation of tasks — and a political process of ironing out disagreements — through the exploration of multiple heterogeneous possibilities.     

Détermination et dominance

La thèse marxiste de la détermination de l'économique est examinée sous deux angles: en tant qu'énonce d'une position philosophique de type matérialiste dans le domaine socio-culturel, et en tant qu'idée directrice théorique et méthodologique. Sous cet angle particulier, le texte se propose d'élucider la question de la forme de cette détermination d'abord, de sa définition ensuite. Le texte explore la signification et la portée d'une définition de la détermination de l'économique comme détermination de la forme dominante dans le processus d'appropriation du surproduit social. Une typologie de sociétés en découle qui traverse aussi le cadre conceptuel d'une bonne partie de la discipline sociologique. Le texte examine le fonctionnement d'une de ces typologies afin de repérer le point nodal où la théorie marxiste se sépare radicalement de ces constructions sociologiques.
In this paper we argue that the Marxist economic determination thesis is both a materialist philosophical statement of the socio-cultural field and a theoretical-methodological guiding principle. In developing this interpretation we examine the form and significance of the economic determination as determination of the dominant form in the process of appropriation of the social product. From this we derive a typology of societies that cuts across the conceptual framework of a large part of the sociological discipline. We then examine the functioning of one of these typologies in order to locate the radical point of departure of Marxist theory from such sociological constructions.     

Dispositifs d’intermédiation marchande et politique des marchés. La modernisation du marché des fruits et légumes en France, 1950-1980

As this study of experiments with organizing the fruit and vegetable market from the 1950s till the end of the 1970s shows, there were alternatives to the principle of distribution, for instance: the modernization of traditional wholesale marketplaces (carreau) or the establishment of veilings (marchés au cadran) controlled by producers. After exposing the rationale underlying each of these arrangements, the empirical conditions are examined for actually modernizing markets. Attention is drawn to the factors that weigh on players in the market, in particular the tensions, on the one hand, between homogenization and concentration and, on the other hand, the singularity of products and transactions.     

L’Europe et les États-providence

This analysis of the EU's influence on the future of national welfare states points out three distinct phases in the interactions between the building of Europe and of welfare states. During a phase of expansion (1950s-1970s), European authorities were building a common market while allowing member states that were lagging behind in welfare to catch up. During a second phase of conflict (1980s-1990s), advances in the economic construction of Europe caused tensions to flare up with social policies inherited from the past. During a third phase (starting in the late 1990s), EU authorities have been trying to reconcile economic policies with new social policies. To analyze each phase, we must take into account both the EU initiatives capable of having a direct or indirect impact on national welfare systems and the national welfare institutions and strategies that were adopted.