De la sociologie en Amérique. Éléments pour une sociologie de la sociologie étasunienne contemporaine

Abstract

<titre>R&#233;sum&#233;</titre>Despite the attention it receives nowadays, u.s. sociology is partly unknown to French sociologists. This is especially true of &#171;&#160;mainstream&#160;&#187; research, which makes up for both the majority of published works. While some works have long been integrated and discussed within the French sociological discourse, core segments of contemporary u.s. sociology continue to be excluded. Based primarily on statistics from a flagship journals in the discipline (the American Sociological Review), this article adumbrates a general outline of contemporary u.s. sociology. It shows several important trends in terms of objects, methods and epistemological regime. It also sheds light on the dramatic transformation of the discipline over the last decades. The overall picture provides us with a seemingly paradoxical result: while largely cited as a model for social research abroad, u.s. sociology is largely idiosyncratic. This article offers evidence of this in three essential dimensions: (i) the objects and the authors are largely u.s.-based; (ii) a vast majority of researches rely on an &#171;&#160;implicit epistemology,&#160;&#187; that borrows widely to natural sciences; (iii) for the most part, the intellectual debates happen within the institutional boundaries of the &#171;&#160;sections&#160;&#187; organized by the professional association.