Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-thh2z Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-22T23:04:40.388Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

L'étrange carrière de la notion de classe sociale dans la tradition de Chicago en sociologie

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Jean-Michel Chapoulie
Jean-Michel Chapoulie
Affiliation:
École normale supérieure, (Fontenay-aux-Roses).
Get access

Abstract

The article examines the different uses made of the concept of social class by researchers of the Chicago School between the turn of the century and the 1940s. The concept of social class is found in Small and Cooley, rarely referred to by Park, and not found at all in the urban sociology work he inspired in the 1920s (Shaw and McKay, etc.) However it reappears in the work on race relations at the end of the 1930s (Frazier, Hughes). Substitutes were introduced in the 1920s to explain internal differentiation within American cities. The spread of new methods of documentation favoured its reappearance in social-political and scientific contexts at the end of the 1930s. This example suggests that an order of phenomena which aims to explain a concept like social class—which is both a scientific and a lay person's concept—can only be ignored for a short time by a program of empirical research. The conclusion stresses the heterogeneity of factors which take into account the transmission and non-transmission of this type of idea from one generation of sociological researchers to another.

L'article examine les differents usages du concept de classe sociale par les chercheurs de la tradi rion de Chicago entre le début du siècle et ies années quarante.

Présente chez Small et Cooley, la notion de classe sociale ne se trouve que rarement chez Park et pas du tout dans les travaux de sociologie urbaine qu'il a inspirées au cours des années vingt (Shaw et McKay, etc.) mais réapparaît dans les travaux sur les relations de races de la fin des années trente (Frazier, Hughes). Des subsrituts ont été introduits pour saisir, dans les années vingt, la différentiation interne à la population des villes américaines. La diffusion de nouvelles méthodes de documentation a favorisé sa réapparition dans le contexte socio-politique et scientifique de la fin des années trente.

Cet exemple suggère qu'un ordre de phénomènes que vise à saisir une notion comme celle de classe sociale — à la fois notion savante et folk-concept — peut difficilement être durablement laissé de côté par un programme de recherche empirique. La conclusion souligne l'hétérogénéité des facteurs qui rendent compte de la transmission et de la nontransmission de ce type de notion d'une génération de chercheurs en sociologie à l'autre.

Dieser Aufstatz untersucht, in welcher Form die Wissenschaftler der Chicagoer Tradition den Begriff der sozialen Klasse verwandt haben. Der Untersuchungszeitraum erstreckt sich von der Jahrhundertwende bis in die 1940er Jahre.

Der Begriff der sozialen Klasse taucht bei Small und Cooley auf, Park verwendet ihn selten und er fehlt gänzlich in den von ihm provozierten Arbeiten der 192oer Jahre über urbane Soziologie (Shaw und McKay, etc.). In den Studien der 193oer Jahre über die Rassenbeziehungen wird er aber wieder eingeführt (Frazier, Hughes), Im Laufe der 2oer Jahren waren Ersatzbegriffe gefunden worden, um die internen Unterscheidungsmerkmale der amerikanischen Stadtbevölkerung zu umschreiben. Die Verbreitung neuer Dokumentationsmethoden hat seine Wiedereinführung im Rahmen des sozialpolitischen und wissenschaftlichen Kontextes der späten 30er Jahre erlaubt.

Dieses Beispiel zeigt, dass eine Erscheinungsform, die ein Begriff wie der der sozialen Klasse — sowohl wissenschaftlich als auch volkstümlich — erfassen soll, nur schwer von einem empirischen Forschungsprogramm vernächlässigt werden kann. Die Schlussfolgerung unterstreicht die Heterogenität jener Faktoren, die von der Übernahme und der Ablehnung dieses Gattungsbegriffs von einer Forschergeneration zur anderen im Fach Soziologie zeugen.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , May 2000 , pp. 53 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

RÉFÉRENCES

Becker, Howard S. (1952), Social-Class Variations in the Teacher-Pupil Relationship, Journal of Educational Sociology, 25 (04), 451–465.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Besnard, Philippe (1987), L'anomie, ses usages et ses fonctions dans la discipline sociologique (Paris, PUF).Google Scholar
Blumenthal, Albert (1932), Small-Town Stuff (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Briand, Jean-Pierre, Chapoulie, Jean-Michel (1982), Les classes sociales : principes d'analyses et données empiriques (Paris, Hatier) (2 ème édition augmentée en 1985).Google Scholar
Bulmer, Martin (1984), The Chicago School of Sociology. Institutionalization, Diversity, and the Rise of Sociological Research (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Bulmer, Martin, Bulmer, Joan (1981), Philanthropy and Social Science in the 1920s: Beardsley Ruml and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, 1922–1929, Minerva (19), 347–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgess, Ernest (1939), Preface to Frazier, 1939, ix–xvii.Google Scholar
Chapoulie, Jean-Michel (1985), Remarques sur les relations entre analyses en terme de rapports de classe et études empiriques de catégories sociales par enquêtes statistiques, Classes et catégories sociales (Edires), 107–117.Google Scholar
Chapoulie, Jean-Michel (1989), L'enseignement primaire supérieur de la loi Guizot aux écoles de la Troisième République, Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, 36 (juillet-septembre), 413–437.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chapoulie, Jean-Michel, Les sociologues de la tradition de Chicago, 1892–1960. Naissance et métamorphoses de la sociologie empirique (à paraître).Google Scholar
Converse, Jean M. (1987), Survey Research in the United States. Roots and Emergence 1890–1960 (Berkeley, University of California Press).Google Scholar
Cooley, Charles Horton (1909), Social Organization: A Study of the larger Mind (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Desrosières, Alain (sd)[1976], Eléments pour l'histoire des nomencaltures socio-professionnelles, Pour une histoire de la Statistique, tome 1 (Paris, INSEE), 155–231.Google Scholar
Drake, Saint Clair, Cayton, Horace (1945), Black Metropolis. A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
DuBois, William, Burghardt, E. (1899), The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (Philadelphia, The University of Pennsylvania Press).Google Scholar
Fisher, Donald (1993), Fundamental Development of the Social Sciences. Rockefeller Philanthropy and the United States Social Science Research Council (Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frazier, Franklin (1925), Durham: Capital of the Black Middle Class, in Locke, Alain (ed.), The New Negro (New York, A. and C. Boni), 333–340.Google Scholar
Frazier, Franklin (1929), La Bourgeoisie Noire, in Culverton, V. F. (ed.), Anthology of American Education Literature (New York, The Modern Library), 329–388.Google Scholar
Frazier, Franklin (1930), Occupational Classes among Negroes in Cities, American Journal of Sociology, 35 (5). 718–738.Google Scholar
Frazier, Franklin (1932), The Negro Family in Chicago (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Frazier, Franklin (1937), Review of Lynd's Middletown in Transition, Science and Society, 1 (4), 573–574.Google Scholar
Frazier, Franklin (1939), The Negro Family in the United States (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Frazier, Franklin (1949), Race Contacts and the Social Structure, American Sociological Review, 14 (1), 1–11.Google Scholar
Frazier, Franklin (1957), Race and Culture Contacts in the Modern World (New York, A. A. Knopf).Google Scholar
Gilkeson, John S. (1995), American Social Scientists and the Domestication of ‘Class’ 1929–1955, Journal of The History of The Behavorial Sciences, 31 (07), 331–346.3.0.CO;2-D>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Milton M. (1949), Social Class in American Sociology, American Journal of Sociology, 55 (3), 262–268.Google Scholar
Gordon, Milton M. (1950), Social Class in American Sociology (Durham, Duke University Press).Google Scholar
Hughes, Everett C. (1938), Position and Status in a Quebec Industrial Town, American Sociological Review, 3 (5), 709–717.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hughes, Everett C. (1943a), French Canada in Transition (Chicago, University of Chicago Press). Traduction française par Jean-Charles Falardeau : Rencontre de deux mondes. La Crise d'industrialisation du Canada François (Montréal, Parizeau, 1945) ; réédition en 1972 par Les Éditions du Boreal Express, Montréal.Google Scholar
Hughes, Everett C. (1943b), Programme de recherches sociales pour le Québec, Cahiers de l'École des Sciences Sociales, Vol. II, No. 4 (Québec, Université Laval), 41 p.Google Scholar
Hughes, Everett C. 1955, New Peoples, in Lind, A.W. (ed.), Race Relations in World Perspective (Honolulu, University of Hawaï Press), 95–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hughes, Everett C. (1971), The Sociological Eye. Selected Papers (Chicago, Aldine).Google Scholar
Hughes, Everett C., Hughes, Helen MacGill (1952), Where Peoples Meet: Racial and Ethnic Frontiers (Glencoe, The Free Press).Google Scholar
Johnson, Charles S. (1934), Shadow of the Plantation (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Johnson, Charles S. (1936), The Conflict of Caste and Class in an American Industry, American Journal of Sociology, 42, (1), 55–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Charles S. (1941), Growing up in the Black Belt (Washington (DC), American Council on Education).Google Scholar
Karl, Barry D. (1983), The Uneasy State. The United States from 1915 to 1945 (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Lal, Barbara Balis (1990), The Romance of Culture in an Urban Civilization. Robert E. Park and the Chicago School (London, Routledge).Google Scholar
Lyman, Stanford (ed.) (1992), Militarism, Imperialism and Racial Accomodation. An Analysis and Interpretations of the Early Writings of Robert E. Park (Fayetville, The University of Arkansas Press).Google Scholar
Lynd, Robert S., Lynd, Helen M. (1929), Middletown (New York, Harcourt Brace).Google Scholar
Lynd, Robert S., (1937). Middletown in Transition (New York, Harcourt Brace).Google Scholar
Matthews, Fred H. (1977), Quest for an American Sociology: Robert E. Park and the Chicago School (Montréal Mc Gill-Queen's University Press).Google Scholar
Matthews, Fred H. (1989), Social Scientists and the Culture Concept, 1930–1950. The conflict between Processual and Structural Approaches, Sociological Theory, 7(1), 106–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Herbert A. (1924), Races, Nations and Classes (Philadelphie, Uppincott).Google Scholar
Nisbet, Robert A. (1959), The Decline and Fall of Social Class, Pacific Sociological Review, 2 (2), 11–17.Google Scholar
Page, Charles H. (1940), Class in American Sociology (New York, Dial Press).Google Scholar
Park, Robert (1913), Negro Home Life and Standards of Living, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, XLIX, 09, 147–163.Google Scholar
Park, Robert (1925), The Concept of Position in Sociology, Publications of the American Sociological Society, XX, 1–14 (republié sous le titre The Urban Community as a Spatial Pattern and a Moral Order, Human Communities, 1952, 165–177).Google Scholar
Park, Robert (1935), Politics and the Man Farthest Down, Preface to Harold Gosnell, Negro Politicians (Chicago, University of Chicago Press), xiii-xxv, Race and Culture, 166–176.Google Scholar
Park, Robert (1939), The Nature of Race Relations, in Thompson, Edgar T. (ed.), Race Relations and the Race Problem (Durham, Duke University Press), 3–45, Race and Culture, 81–116.Google Scholar
Park, Robert (1950–1955), The Collected Papers of Robert Ezra Park, ed. by Hughes, Everett C., Johnson, Charles S., Masuaoka, Kisuichi, Redfield, Robert, Wirth, Louis (Glencoe (III), Free Press), Vol 1, Race and Culture, 1950; Vol 11, Human Communities: The City and Human Ecology, 1952; Vol III, Society: Collective Behavior, News and Opinion, Sociology and Modern Society, 1955.Google Scholar
Park, Robert E., Burgess, Ernest W. (1924), Introduction to the Science of Sociology (Chicago, University of Chicago Press) [ière édition 1921].Google Scholar
Park, Robert E., Burgess, Ernest W., McKenzie, Roderick D. (1925), The City (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Platt, Anthony M. (1991), E. Franklin Frazier Reconsidered (New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaw, Clifford R., Zorbaugh, Frederick, McKay, Henry D., Cottrell, Leonard S. (1929), Delinquency Areas (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Shaw, Clifford R., McKay, Henry D. (1942), Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Small, Albion K. (1912), Socialism in the Light of Social Science, American Journal of Sociology, 17 (6), 804–819.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Small, Albion K., Vincent, George E. (1894), An Introduction to the Study of Society (New York, American Book Company).Google Scholar
Wirth, Louis (1928), The Ghetto (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Zorbaugh, Harvey W. (1929), The Gold Coast and the Slum: A Sociological Study of Chicago's Near North Side (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Chicago Commission of Race Relations (1922), The Negro in Chicago. A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot in 1919 (Chicago, University of Chicago Press) (l'auteur principal de cette étude inspirée par Park est Charles Johnson).Google Scholar