Abstract
I have tried to recreate here some historiographical information taken from my teaching notes, from research documents from the 1960s and, in particular, from simple recollections of discussions with other researchers. There are also contained here recollections of readings of works and reviews from this period and also recollections of encounters with audiences (university or otherwise) during public debates. I am therefore working within the context of the questions that J-L Robert asked in his introduction at the Study Day on “Concepts developed between 1945 and 1975”, as well as within a context of approaches which are intended to be scientific in terms of their methodologies, questions, aims, sources and conclusions. But I am also working within the context of follow-up work spanning two decades on “the diffusion and appropriation of concepts” which essentially focussed on the sociology of education and culture. I am therefore responding to many points of fact asked by J-M Chapoulie in his introduction or of which he asked for my memories. However, I will not recall here my personal relationship with Bourdieu during our dozen or so years of close collaboration, in which a sociology of education was developed which we broadly shared and which remained so, despite our epistemological differences of opinion after 1972, into which I gave an insight in a recent article.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.