History welcomed the screwball comedy genre in 1934, a time where cinema was in urgent need of providing escapism to audiences victim of the Great Depression. Screwball films, therefore, chose to underline the distinction between social classes and to emphasise on the imperfections of the upper class. The following thesis aims to determine how Depression screwballs (screwball comedies released from 1934 to 1938) used their narrative power to establish this distinction between opposed social classes and how this reflects the undeniable importance of an overlooked genre. It is with a socio-historical approach, personal analyses and observations, that the following research has been conducted. In conclusion, it has been recognised that the genre drew its importance, not only in the way it represents social classes but also how it depicts their mutual interactions, therefore forming a significant whole.

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the People’s House in Bromölla as an arena for a plebeian public sphere. More specific, the analysis revolves around how the labour movement created a plebeian public sphere, the construction of the very arena and the activities there, including study circles, labour library, theatre plays, film showings, dance evenings and other amusements as parts of adult education among the working class people. It also comprises examinations of the labour movement’s acting in the local political arena, the labour movement’s connections with the local bourgeoisie on matters concerning politics and the People’s House. The main theoretical perspective is based on Jürgen Habermas’ theory of bourgeois public sphere, reformulated to a plebeian public sphere. The adult education in study circles mainly focused on subjects related to the work in the local politics and in the trade union, i.e. for the activities in the public sphere. These parts of the adult education were primarily a matter for the male part of the labour movement. This mirrors the situation in politics and in the trade union, where foremost men were engaged. Beside the trade union and political studies, subjects like Swedish, English, Esperanto, mathematics and literature were common. From time to time socialism and Marxism were studied. The women mainly studied humanistic subjects with individual development and hold thus the vision of the education ideologists within the labour movement. In the 1940’s the study circles decreased, and finally, in the end of the 1950’s almost ceased. Despite this the education did not cease, but were replaced by music, singing, dancing and machine sewing courses arranged by commercial companies and aesthetic associations. The People’s House was from the beginning open even for associations outside the labour movement. In the 1940’s and, in particularly, the 1950’s the People’s House became an assembly hall for a huge range of associations. Among the tenants were Free Church parishes, athletic associations, hobby associations, temperance societies, political parties from left to right, trade unions, authorities, companies, and the municipal of Bromölla. People’s house was also a place for wedding and birthday celebrations and other private parties. Among the more frequent tenants were Free Churches and music, singing and athletic associations, beside Bromölla municipal, which were a permanent tenant, for instance for the municipal library. The amount of associations from outside the labour movement among the tenants exceeded for some years in the end of 1950’s the labour movement’s meetings. This cross class policy was a conscious strategy by the People’s House association, in order to be a cultural institution for all inhabitants in Bromölla. The municipal council of Bromölla was even a part of this policy when subsidizing the People’s House association. It was in accordance with the cross class and consensus policy which the social democratic movement by this time was an exponent of. The People’s House in Bromölla was thus an arena not only for the labour movement, but also for the entire society.

Notre travail se penche sur le financement de la formation professionnelle continue tel qu'il a été négocié par les partenaires sociaux dans les pays européens post-fordistes. A travers une approche des associations patronales centrée sur la distribution inégale des ressources entre grandes firmes et PME, nous montrons que l'émergence d'une gestion corporatiste (les fonds de mutualisation) peut s'interpréter comme le résultat d'alliances inter-classes entre les syndicats, les associations patronales et les PME, contre les grandes entreprises. Bien que nous mobilisions un corpus centré sur les employeurs à l’image de ce que fait l'approche en termes de Variétés du Capitalisme (VoC – Hall et Soskice, 2001), la thèse soutenue est plus proche de l’institutionnalisme historique de l'Ecole française de la Régulation. En effet, l'attention accordée à l'hétérogénéité des firmes et au rôle du politique est difficilement compatible avec l’institutionnalisme rationnel de la VoC et sa conception des associations patronales comme simples outils de coordination des firmes / Our work tackles the issue of the financing of the continuous vocational training as it has been negotiated by social partners in the post-fordist European countries. The reflection is centered on the unequal distribution of resources among the large and small firms affiliated to employer associations. It is shown that the emergence of a corporatist governance (the training funds) can be interpreted as the result of cross-class coalitions between trade unions, employer association and SMEs, against big companies. Although we mobilize a theoretical corpus centered on employers as the ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ approach does (VoC – Hall and Soskice, 2001), our dissertation is closer to the historical institutionalism of the French Régulation School. Indeed, the attention granted to the firms’ heterogeneity and to the role of politics is hardly compatible with the VoC rational institutionalism and its conception of employer organizations as mere employer coordination instruments.

Ce mémoire analyse le phénomène de mobilité sociale chez les individus racisés en prenant comme fondement de la réflexion le concept de « transclasse » de la philosophe française Chantal Jaquet. Prenant comme point de départ les travaux de Jaquet, cette étude interrogera dans un premier temps les caractéristiques de cette figure du transclasse, les partis pris de la philosophe ainsi que les limites d’un tel concept. Les analyses de films qui ponctuent le second mouvement de cette étude viendra compléter les hypothèses et illustrer nos propos ; ces analyses – portant sur un corpus de films français exclusivement – permettront d’étudier la place du transclasse-racisé au cinéma et les façons dont il est représenté à l’écran par les cinéastes. Ces deux grands temps du mémoire prendront en considération les contextes historique, politique et social français de la fin de la colonisation française à nos jours. Enfin, cette réflexion autour du transclasse-racisé s’appuiera sur la création qui accompagne ces recherches, un film documentaire, Le seul de la classe, tourné tout au long de l’année et réalisé au Québec. Ce film a pour objet le parcours d’individus racisés, leur rapport à une identité multiple et leur place dans la mobilité sociale dans la société québécoise. / This dissertation analyzes the social mobility phenomenon within racialized group basing its reflection on the French philosopher Chantal Jaquet’s « cross-class » concept. Considering the philosopher’s studies as a starting point, this dissertation will first question the cross-class’s features, the philosopher’s bias in her studies as well as the limits of such a concept. The film analysis which are present in the second part of this study will complete the hypothesis and illustrate our statements; these analysis – which exclusively focus on a corpus of French movies – will enable to study the racialized cross-class’s place in the cinema and the ways filmmakers represent him on the screen. These two parts of the study will take into account the historical, political and social contexts from the end of the French colonization until nowadays. Finally, this reflection around the racialized cross-class character will be based on the creation which accompanies this study, a documentary Le seul de la classe which was shot during this year and directed in Québec. This movie tackles the issue of racialized individuals’s journey, their relation to a multiple identity and their own place in the social mobility in the Quebec society.