Sociology of Action - Transformations of Institutions - Education (SATIE)

The research group on Sociology of Education is led by Prof. Jean-Paul Payet.

Research Fields

The Group of Sociology of Education is interested in the analysis of the school and educational institutions in contemporary contexts of transformation of the institutional models and programs, of pluralisation of the values and norms, of diversification of the populations.

At the epistemological level, it develops a contextualized perspective, attentive with the local and located definition of action, with the work of the circumstances and the relations of coordination and negotiation. The ethnographic method is generally used.

The objects of research are defined starting from social issues such as defined in public sphere (political objectives of school, violence in school, school failure of the children of migrants, care of poor families) and are studied in their ordinary and lived dimension by the professionals and the users of school and educational institutions. The fields of research are diversified at the international level (Swiss, France, South Africa, Tunisia) and analysed with a comparative method.