History of a concept. If the four horsemen of the Apocalypse were reinterpreted to this day, perhaps he would appear among their ranks, as he is so feared. Downgrade, which in sociology designates a descending social movement, that is, the fact that an individual descends to a lower social rank than the one he or she occupied until then, has been gaining ground in public debate since the 1990s. However, it is not new, just as the fear of falling down the social ladder is not a specific disease of the 21st century.my century, as Balzac attests in Father Goriot (1835). So why this recent broadcast?
Unlike its competitors “fall” or “decline”, degradation must first and foremost be an identified sociological object. The study of degradation appeared in the discipline at the end of the 1960s, under the pen of two sociologists who, however, had everything against them: while Raymond Aron prophesied, in The disappointments of progress (Calmann-Lévy, 1969), the advent of a generation in which more and more people will be demoted in relation to their titles, Pierre Bourdieu, for his part, warns the public against the arrival of a potentially degraded generation in the article “ Classification, degradation, reclassification” (1978).
However, decommissioning remained a topic of marginal study while the “thirty glorious years” were in full swing, between 1945 and 1975. Only in the 1990s did work on decommissioning and the skepticism that had first welcomed it multiply. . dissipates” As crises continue and integration difficulties for younger generations increase in the 2000s », recalls the sociologist Camille Peugny, who at that time was writing his thesis on the subject (DismantlingGrasset, 2009).
But how, in concrete terms, do researchers measure the reality of social regression? Sociology actually proposes three definitions of dismantling. The first addresses the topic from an intergenerational point of view, “that is, studying the statutory, social and professional situation of sons and daughters in comparison with that of their father and mother at the same age”, explains Florence Lefresne, former director of the Center for Studies and Research on Qualifications.
“Unjust destinies”
“The second approach, continues the socioeconomistIt consists of measuring degradation in terms of the difference between the level of an individual’s title and the social position occupied with that title. – a phenomenon also known as “education degradation” and linked to an increase in the number of graduates faster than the number of qualified jobs available.
You have 50.51% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
