Les activités culturelles et de loisirs des adolescents : une approche de la diversité des habitus sociaux.

Abstract

This article is the first of a series of three attempting to evaluate the respective roles of current educational experience of adolescents and of their cultural habitus in the development of a representative system enabling them to assess occupations. In order to demonstrate differences in habitus, 573 youngsters aged approximately 17-18 and in 6 different educational programs (pupils in their penultimate year of senior high school in 4 streams : literature (A), electronics (F2), medico-social secretariat (F8) and science (S) ; adolescents in their last year of training for the vocational training certificate in management and bookkeeping (B.E.P. C.A.S.) and apprentice car mechanics) answered a questionnaire concerning their cultural and leisure activities. Their answers revealed “families”of customs “going together” and mutually exclusive. Thus notable differences emerged between activities which could be qualified as “feminine” or “ masculine”. Some had an overwhelming interest in leisure activities, either “popular” or “ distinctive”, which others rejected. Concomitant choices and rejections were interconnected in a particularly delicate manner : a hierarchical classification tree enabled the identification of patterns of customs which may be close but at the same time different (e.g. : those of the “classical distinguished” girl and those of the “modern distinguished” girl). These cultural choices are strongly linked to educational program (and only slightly to the occupation of the father or mother). It is thus hardly surprising that the most “distinguished customs” are seen in the most esteemed high school streams (S and A2), and “popular tastes” in the program leading to a vocational training certificate. However this link is not absolute, each type of educational program containing youngsters whose choices diverge from those considered as “typical” in their program. These results can be interpreted in terms of differences between their primary (familial) habitus and the habitus implicitly presupposed by their current educational program.