In the context of the distinction between normative and descriptive approaches to the relationship between science and religion, this article discusses the recent work of the sociologist Elaine Ecklund. It reviews four of her published outputs, summarising her data concerning the views of religious people and professional scientists, including…

We analyze the prestige of 1,500 scholars in economics, sociology, and management who have Spanish and French institutional affiliations operationalized by their h-index in Scopus and Google Scholar. We use a negative binomial count model to examine how some individual factors affect the h-index from both databases. The results show a…

A classic in the philosophy of education, considering the fundamental purpose and function of schools, translated into English for the first time. The open access edition of this book was made possible by generous funding from Arcadia--a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. This classic 1971 work on the fundamental purpose and…

This article explores the activity of canyoning in the natural territory of the Mercantour National Park (France). The investigation refers to the sociology of logics of action to understand the disparity of its development. The 85 canyons are explored according to their interest and their use. The interviews conducted with professionals and other…

Drawing on our experiences of interviewing elites, this article suggests that methodological reflexivity yields insights into the construction of symbolic and social hierarchies in contextualised interactions. The paper focuses on "academic culture" as the "locus" through which power relations were experienced in interview…

Although much overlooked by both sociologists and educators, Emile Durkheim's "The Evolution of Educational Thought" ("EET"; lectures from 1904-1905) not only provides extended insight into the developmental flows and disjunctures of Western education and scholarship from the classical Greek era to Durkheim's own time but also…

This article synthesises some findings of an international research project called "Know&Pol" to question the effects of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) on the public debate in three European countries (France, Portugal and Scotland). Using a political science approach, it shows that Pisa did not…

This paper seeks to examine students' values in "relationship to their studies." After defining the concept within this rubric, we attempt to define the values at work from the perspectives of (1) the motivation for pursuing post-secondary studies; (2) the pace of studies; (3) the time devoted to study; (4) the time spent in the…

New theories and theory-based methodological approaches have found their way into Comparative Education--just as into Comparative Social Science more generally--in increasing number in the recent past. The essays of this volume express and critically discuss quite a range of these positions such as, inter alia, the theory of self-organizing social…

Divides the history of urban sociology in France into three periods: (1) functionalism, which lasted from 1910 until the 1960s, (2) neo-Marxist socioeconomics lasting from 1968 until 1979, and (3) anthropological approach which is still dominant. Reviews theoretical perspectives and research characteristic of each period. (JDH)

The paper approaches the issue of school choice in an indirect manner by investigating the effectiveness of public, private government-dependent and private independent schools in 19 Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development countries selected from the PISA 2000 survey for this purpose. In a multilevel approach we estimate these…

For many years, professional career counseling practice has been based on psychological rather than sociological theories. This paper argues that sociological theories, particularly those of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (P. Bourdieu and L. Wacquant, 1992) are important for the framework of the counselor. (Author/JDM)

In this article, the authors propose to examine the question of the French early childhood schooling in terms of the socialization processes. The authors start by presenting briefly the main characteristics of the French nursery school. They then discuss socialization processes through sociological perspectives on historical and anthropological…

Examines the role played in community life and in work associations by young people born of immigrant parents from North Africa. Maintains that they must be more fully integrated into the mainstream of French social and cultural life. (JDH)

Through an examination of the development of the discipline of sociology in France in the period 1880-1925, this article sheds light on some of the more general processes at work in the institutionalization of the social sciences and on the social and political consequences of that institutionalization. (RM)