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When it is relational, processual, and it articulates the incorporated dispositions of the actors and the contexts of their actions, sociology 'desevidentialize,' denaturalize, desubstantialize, and historicize the social world by contributing to do away with spontaneous representations that distort the reality of things. Besides, when sociology studies the social at the level of the individuals and individual actions, it destroys the fictions (juridical and philosophical) of the isolated individuals, enclosed on himself, free and fully conscious of everything. By producing images of the real state of the social world, sociology fully participates in the democratic life of our societies and should, therefore, be at the heart of the formation of citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses miscellaneous topics related to literature. Topics discussed include differences between principles and their theoretical, methodological, and empirical actualizations, sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's reflections on literary field and model of textual interpretation. Other topics include link between sociology and psychoanalysis and critical logic of assigning value or meaning.

In developing his theory of the “literary field,” Pierre Bourdieu essentially had in mind the case of France from the second half of the nineteenth century, the use of which as a case undoubtedly contributed to his marginalizing numerous aspects of the national microcosm. Among its unstated and unrecognized particular qualities, France is mono-national (rather than multinational) and monolingual (rather than multilingual), and occupies the dominant position in the international Francophone world (much as Germany is at the heart of the German-speaking world). A state, a nation, a language, a territory, a literature – all of these make one unit and prevent one from considering situations more complex or tangled, such as those of many minority literatures. These allow the tackling of issues – among others, problems of their “autonomy” in relation to realities outside of literature such as the political, religious, linguistic, and economic. Rather than imposing constraints on a research agenda, the study of minority literatures allows one to shed light on the complex and contradictory relations between the political (the national, the communal, and sometimes the state), the market, and the literary game. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

First instance of socialization, the family - the constellation of people who actually make up a family and are in frequent interaction with children - has a monopoly on the early formation of mental and behavioral dispositions of children, being the first place (primary) that tends to establish objectively - without knowing or intending it - the limits of the possible and desirable. However, the family is never this organism consistent, uniform and smooth as enchanted by visions, or simply in flyover macrosociological how many visions of the "family environment" as a means defined by a few large social synthetic properties, they can incite. Not only the people that make them among the family configuration are carriers of different social properties, but multiple potential tensions between everyone involved, the possible competition between siblings, the balance of power between the parents or, more broadly, between the branches paternal and maternal relations of domination that develop between parents and children, brothers, etc.. mean that the child can be the product of a kind of "socializing bath" continuous, undifferentiated, harmonious and fluid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a long time, research on the practices of writing has been a common topic for historians, anthropologists and psychologists. This research has shown the importance of writing practices for history; from a cognitive point of view, and from the perspective of social organizations of the economic, political, legal and religious realms. While the different works established the heuristic proliferation of the study of written cultures, there is little knowledge about which writing practices build and organize, form and transform, the contemporary social life. This article intends to show the heuristic interest raised by the description and analysis of the everyday practices of writing, through which understanding the socio-mental dispositions and the organization of everyday activities, and their differences between genres is made possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: By considering cultural practices and preferences in terms of intra-individual behavioural variation we arrive at a model of the social world which does not neglect individual singularities and avoids the cultural caricaturing of social groups. It then becomes clear that the boundary between “cultural legitimacy” and “cultural illegitimacy” does not only separate different social classes, but divides up the different cultural practices and preferences of individuals across all classes. Without calling into question the existence of social inequalities before the most legitimate forms of culture, such a scientific point of view allows us to establish the marked statistical frequency of individual cultural profiles composed of heterogeneous or dissonant elements. Having considered the socio-historical conditions that produce heterogeneous cultural profiles, these frequent cultural dissonances allow us to reinterpret the social functions of culture and to highlight the importance of the study of intra-individual behavioural variations within the framework of a sociology of dispositional and contextual plurality. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

It is argued that the notions sociologists use to conceptualize psychological processes occurring at the level of social groups capitalize too strongly on the idea that these processes are general and homogeneous in nature. In particular, the notion of ‘disposition’, which is central to Bourdieu''s theory of the habitus and which is widely employed in sociological research, is found to rest upon these tacit and problematic assumptions which have never been tested empirically. Instead, we should envision that social agents have developed a broad array of dispositions, each of which owes its availability, composition, and force to the socialization process in which it was acquired. In particular, a distinction should be made between dispositions to act and dispositions to believe. Moreover, the intensity with which dispositions affect behavior depends also on the specific context in which social agents interact with one another. A focus on the plurality of dispositions and on the variety of situations in which they manifest themselves is at the core of a sociology at the level of the individual. Its research program conceives of individuals as being products of pluriform social processes occurring in very different domains. It focuses on social factors that may account for behavioral variations and changes rather than for irreducible differences between social groups. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Pays tribute to sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Intellectual works of Bourdieu; Theoretical legacy of Bourdieu.