The First French Sociology Textbooks (1920—45)

Abstract

The first French sociology textbooks were based on a 1920 official curriculum for Ecoles Normales (teacher training schools). The textbooks for students of philosophy and for students at the Ecole Normale Supérieure are related to the same curriculum. This article compares the textbooks written for the Ecole Normale, students of philosophy and students of the Ecole Normale Supérieure. Célestin Bouglé, director of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, played a key role in the undertaking. Sociology in the Ecole Normale is supposed to give to the trainees a Weltanschauung, practical norms and a certain practical knowledge, while university students are invited to try to understand the world and to see sociology as part of general culture. keywords: AlcanSociology in France after the First World War was taught in three different kinds of institution: the teacher training schools or Ecoles Normales (attended after the brevet supérieur from Primaire Supérieur), the universities and the Ecole Normale Supérieure (one of the specialized higher university schools, which selects the best students on the basis of a competitive examination). Sociology was a minor discipline, taught only as a course in general sociology followed by students of philosophy as part of a degree called 'Morals and Sociology'; in neither case would the students get a degree in sociology. There were few chairs in sociology: one at the Downloaded from that could be compared with the discipline taught in the US, and the BA in sociology would not be created until 1958.The sociology textbook of the Ecoles Normales was based on an official curriculum adopted in 1920; the same curriculum was used in the universities, but in a different way. This curriculum was created among the circle of Durkheimians, mainly around Bouglé and Fauconnet; many were now members of faculties, or held positions of power at the Ministry of Public Education, like Paul Lapie. Bouglé (1870Bouglé ( -1940 was the maître d'oeuvre of that official sociology, an entrepreneur in sociology (Marcel, 2001). The bookshop and the publisher were Felix Alcan, a former student of the Ecole Normale Supérieure. Alcan's bookshop in Paris published Durkheim's famous L'Année Sociologique and several well-known collections; he sought the most famous authors of the academic world, and his best-seller was the philosopher Henri Bergson. (Durkheim had always been pleased with the deals he made with Félix Alcan; both came from Lorraine, and both supported Dreyfus.)What was the social setting of these developments? Let us recall a few facts about France after the First World War. The country was undoubtedly victorious, but completely drained; it lacked both raw material and men. The books published show the shortage of paper. Generations of students had been lost; half the students of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, who might have taken over the Durkheimian group, were dead. With their disappearance, the replacement of French sociology appeared quite impossible. In 1928, France had 41.5 million inhabitants, the four...

A larger grain of sense. Making early non-Western sociological thought visible

“…As noticed by Suzie Guth (2008), the earliest French textbooks from the 1920s to the 1940s were overwhelmingly devoted to French, American, English and German authors. This is mostly the case in the post-war period, with the notable exception of Twentieth Century Sociology (Gurvitch and Moore, 1945), the second volume of which includes several chapters on the state of sociology in different countries or regions of the world 4 .…”