Depuis une trentaine d’années, les travaux français qui portent sur les grandes surfaces alimentaires en sociologie du travail ont privilégié l’étude des caissières sans se soucier outre mesure des salariés des rayons. Cette thèse vise à rétablir ce déséquilibre en se focalisant sur les managers de rayon, premier niveau d’encadrement des magasins.Afin d’étudier ce groupe, nous commençons par mobiliser la sociologie du travail pour conduire une analyse microsociologique de leur travail quotidien. Les managers ont pour principales missions de faire progresser le chiffre d’affaires et la marge des rayons sous leur responsabilité ainsi que de motiver leurs équipes d’employés. Ils sont donc en interaction constante avec les employés chargés de la mise en rayon des produits, d’une partie des commandes et de la gestion des stocks, mais aussi avec d’autres interlocuteurs comme les fournisseurs ou encore les clients. Ce sont les membres de la direction du magasin (manager secteur, directeur) qui leur donnent des directives, contrôlent leurs résultats et évaluent leur comportement.Afin de prendre de la hauteur vis-à-vis des interactions quotidiennes, nous mobilisons également la sociologie des professions pour conduire une analyse davantage mésosociologique et macrosociologique. Nous étudions de cette façon les transformations de l’organisation du travail dans les magasins et celles du groupe des managers de rayon, toutes deux étroitement corrélées aux mutations structurelles de la branche de la distribution qui s’adapte en permanence aux aléas de la conjoncture économique et au goût versatile des consommateurs. Nous nous focalisons par conséquent sur les changements du travail, de l’emploi et de l’organisation des supermarchés et des hypermarchés qui touchent les managers depuis les années 2000 et s’accélèrent au cours des années 2010.Contrairement aux monographies réalisées sur les caissières, cette approche permet au moins deux choses. Premièrement, nous pouvons replacer dans leur contexte les nombreuses transformations du travail, de l’organisation et de l’emploi qu’ont vécues les salariés des rayons depuis le tournant des années 2010. Quand cela s’avère nécessaire, nous détaillons l’impact différencié de ces mutations sur les managers en fonction de leur appartenance à un ou plusieurs segments professionnels : enseigne intégrée vs indépendante, rayons alimentaires vs non alimentaires, zone urbaine vs rurale, supermarchés vs hypermarchés, faible présence syndicale vs délégués syndicaux revendicatifs.Notre approche nous permet par ailleurs de développer une réflexion dans le champ de la sociologie des professions : entre une approche fonctionnaliste qui se focalise sur l’unité d’une profession et une approche interactionniste qui insiste sur la diversité des pratiques au sein d’un même groupe professionnel, nous mobilisons le concept d’ethos professionnel pour penser à la fois l’unité et la diversité du groupe des managers de rayon. Nous proposons pour ce faire une définition personnelle de l’ethos en trois dimensions : une dimension pratique (activité, tâches, travail concret), une dimension symbolique (discours, normes, valeurs, représentations) et une dimension sociale (sexe, classe, race, diplôme, âge). Cet ethos ainsi défini articule les caractéristiques objectives d’un groupe professionnel avec ses valeurs et représentations et avec son travail concret.La thèse se divise en deux grandes parties. La première décrit la dimension pratique de l’ethos professionnel des managers de rayon. La seconde ajoute les dimensions symbolique et sociale de cet ethos bousculé par les récentes réorganisations des magasins. La thèse se conclut par une définition précise du concept d’ethos professionnel qui ouvre des perspectives de recherche concernant d’autres groupes professionnels. / For the past 30 years, research in France concerning workplace sociology within supermarkets and hypermarkets have highly favored the study of cashiers, thus disregarding the department employees. The aim of this dissertation is to restore this discrepancy by focusing on department managers who represent the first level of management in retail stores.In order to study this specific workforce, a focus on workplace sociology was initially necessary to advance a microsociological analysis of their daily work. The main tasks of department managers are to increase the turnover and the profits of the departments they are responsible for as well as keeping up the motivation of their teams. Therefore, they are interacting on a daily basis with the employees responsible for shelving, ordering, and stock managing products as well as dealing with suppliers and customers. Instructions are given by the store management i.e. store manager or sector manager, who also check the employees’ results and assess their behavior. To get some insight into the daily interactions in a supermarket, the sociology of professions was considered to produce a mesosociological and macrosociological analysis of the workplace and employment. This serves as a way to study the evolution in retail stores’ work structure as well as the changes in the particular group of department managers. Both are closely linked to the structural changes of the retail industry which is constantly adjusting to the contingencies of the economic context and the changeable desire of customers. Therefore, the mutations at work will be highlighted, for the employment and management in supermarkets and hypermarkets, which have impacted managers since the early 2000s ; a process that began accelerating around 2010.Unlike the numerous monographs that can be found on the topic of cashiers, this approach will focus on two elements. First, we will contextualize the structural and employment evolutions at work that retail employees have faced since the turn of the 2010s. We will elaborate, when needed, on the differentiated impact of these mutations on managers depending on their relation to one or several professional segments: food store chains vs. independent stores, food department vs. non-food departments, urban areas vs. rural areas, supermarkets vs. hypermarkets, weak union presence vs. strong union representation. In addition, this method leads to a deeper consideration on the sociology of professions: 1) a functionalist theoretical approach which focuses on the individuality of a profession and 2) an interactionist theoretical approach underlining the variety of practices within the same professional group. The concept of professional ethos is all the while used to encompass both the uniqueness and variety of department managers. A personal interpretation of this ethos will be developed revolving around 3 points: a practical dimension (practice, activities, tasks, rules, daily missions), a symbolic dimension (discourse, norms, values, representations) and a social dimension (gender, education, age, social category). This new definition of ethos, remaining consistent with the objective features of a professional group and its values, representation, and daily work, will open up new perspectives of research regarding other professional groups.This dissertation is divided into two parts. The first is dedicated to the practical dimension of the professional ethos of department managers. The second is devoted to the symbolic and social aspects of this work ethos which has been disturbed by the recent restructuring of retail stores. This thesis will conclude with an accurate definition of the concept of professional ethos which will contribute to understand other professional groups.

This thesis examines the effects of de-industrialisation on the lives of adult learners attending adult education programmes in the former coal mining and steel working communities of County Durham. It presents the outcomes of a qualitative study of life history stories which are 'person centred'. Focusing on the subjective experiences of learners, both past and present, was an appropriate way in which the learner voice could be heard as well as helping to understand their experiences and views on the effects that de- industrialisation has had on their lives, and if lifelong learning was improving their life chances. The importance of social class and gender in configuring and understanding adult learner experiences are critical factors whilst, at the same time, the collective resources of these working class communities have been systematically undermined. Furthermore, the provision of publically funded adult education has declined dramatically since the 1980s. Through the prism of learners' lives the study explores experiences of employability skills programmes and community adult education programmes on shaping the position, disposition and identity of learners who have experienced a major trauma to their communities, their families and themselves. Ontological insecurity, a product of de-industrialisation, has a critical impact on the lives of these adults. The thesis adopts Hirschman's (1970) framework of 'Exit, Loyalty and Voice', originally used to frame the responses of workers confronting the possibility of job losses in a firm, as a way of understanding the reactions of adult learners to the impact of de-industrialisation on communities. In Hirschman's framework the relationship between exit, loyalty and voice followed a distinctive pattern. Loyalty, for example, was the opposite of voice, as people in a firm stayed silent in order to be saved from job loss. In this study, loyalty to the community has enabled individuals to benefit from support and community provision, which has given them a lifeline for survival and a step on the way to finding a voice. Exit, in the original framework, involved proactive workers getting 'ahead of the curve' by finding alternative employment before others. In this study, employability skills training - as a resource for exit - does not deliver. Instead, it systematically demoralises individuals and undermines their capacity to act. It involves churning learners between welfare and more training programmes and, where and when available, into short-term work. The overall impact has resulted in the social exclusion of these learners from the labour market and from the community - the opposite of agency. It is argued that this is a paradox given that social and economic inclusion was an aim of lifelong learning policies. The thesis challenges the claim of neoliberal ideology that purports to promote the freedom of individuals to determine their own fate. Those attending employability skills programmes are expected to find solutions to structural problems, and are subjected to coercive methods through psychological interventions that are expected to bring about attitudinal behaviour changes to achieve employability. It is argued that this is a paradox given deficient labour market conditions which are beyond the control of the learner. Attention is given to public sector community adult education that once offered liberating models of adult education, but have now been subjected to the logic of neoliberal governmentality. This is creating new 'subjectivities' for educators, who are being coerced to deliver learning for the economy rather than social purpose education. What has emerged is a new role of the employability trainer.

Background. The study was prompted by observation that failure to obtain a positive postsecondary destination is significantly more prevalent in young people living in areas of greater social deprivation, and in males rather than females. Previous studies have shown that this could be linked to differences in social cognitive factors. However, these studies have been mainly correlational and no comprehensive assessment instrument was found to assess preparedness for the postsecondary transition. Aims. The present study examines senior high school student’s perceptions of the personal, behavioural and environmental factors that affect them as they prepare to leave school. It reveals the structure of these factors and how they vary with regard to social deprivation and gender. Sample. The participants were 1044 senior high school students (573 males and 471 females) who attended six urban high schools. Method. A pre-empirical, 50-item assessment instrument was constructed based on the literature review to identify the wide range of factors previously shown to be relevant to achievement of a positive postsecondary destination. This was then administered to participants. Results. Factor analysis indicated that young people’s perceptions about leaving school were best represented by thirteen factors. An ANOVA model indicated that young people living in areas of higher deprivation reported significantly lower levels of positive postsecondary destination self-efficacy belief, less experience of vicarious career success, less performance of career development tasks, greater perception of career barriers, greater endorsement of a fixed career mindset, and fewer career scaffolding attachments. Males, compared to females, reported less experience of past career success, and fewer career scaffolding attachments. However, despite being at greater risk of a negative postsecondary destination, males reported higher levels of positive postsecondary destination self-efficacy belief, greater experience of positive career-related emotional arousal, greater ability to set career goals, and greater levels of career optimism. Conclusion. Twelve significant main effects on the measured social cognitive factors have the potential to contribute to an explanation of why failure to obtain a positive postsecondary destination is more prevalent in young people living in areas of greater social deprivation, and in males rather than females. A new assessment instrument has been produced to inform an ongoing exploratory process to design, target and evaluate educational interventions to improve postsecondary destinations for all. Increasing internal consistency, external validity and generalisability of findings are all desirable. Some future interventions are proposed on the basis of the results, including greater use of positive career role models in career development programmes, career mindset retraining for high school students, and psycho-education on attachment-fostering behaviours for parents and professionals.

Studien sökte besvara hur det kompensatoriska uppdraget uppfattades, vad som kompenserades, vilka strategier som användes samt förutsättningar för det. Social bakgrund i relation till det kompensatoriska uppdraget har genomsyrat skolans utveckling över tid och därav låg studiens fokus på det. Tidigare forskning visade att social bakgrund samt språknivå korrelerar väl med skolprestation. Data samlades in med hjälp av 18 semistrukturerade intervjuer med lärare, specialpedagoger, rektorer och skolchef från förskola till gymnasiet, mejlkonversation med tre statliga skolmyndigheter samt personliga samtal med två statstjänstemän. Studiens teoretiska utgångspunkter inbegrep intersektionalitet, specialpedagogiska perspektiv, sociokulturellt och salutogent perspektiv samt habitus. Enligt Skollagen ska skolan kompensera för elevers olika behov och förutsättningar. Trots att informanterna kompenserade för många saker, framförallt neuropsykiatriska funktionsnedsättningar, framkom en viss osäkerhet kring uppdraget då det var relativt okänt och dels uppfattades tolkningsbart. Förutsättningarna för uppdraget varierade. De största hindren tycktes vara brist på kommunikation kring uppdraget samt resurser. Statstjänstemännen var tydliga med att det är språket som ska kompenseras. De flesta av informanterna ansåg inte att kopplingen mellan social bakgrund samt språknivå och kompensatoriska insatser är tydlig. Många uttryckte att de kopplar social bakgrund till föräldrars förmåga att stötta sina barn med läxläsning eller ekonomiska förutsättningar. En av studiens slutsatser var att det kompensatoriska uppdraget behöver förtydligas och diskuteras i större omfattning. / This study sought to show how the compensatory mission is perceived, what is being compensated as well as which strategies are used and finally the prerequisites for the mission. Social context in relation to the compensatory mission has throughout the history of school been of importance and it is therefore a focal point in this study. Previous research showed that social context as well as language skills corresponds well to a student's school performance. The data collection method was semi structured interviews with a total of 18 teachers, special educators, headmasters and a headmaster of education, from nursery and preschool to high school. Data were also collected from three national school authorities and two officials. The theoretical framework included different perspectives such as intersectional, special education, sociocultural, salutogenic and habitus. According to the school law, the school ought to compensate for the different needs and prerequisites of the students. Despite the fact that the informants compensated for many things, in particular neuropsychiatric disabilities, an uncertainty concerning the mission arose since it was relatively unknown and was apprehended as interpretable. The prerequisites for the mission varied. The mayor obstacles for the mission seemed to be lack of communication regarding the mission and resources. The two officials were explicit concerning that it is the language that should be compensated for. The informants did not find the connections between social background and compensatory input or language clear. Nevertheless, they saw a coupling between social background and parents´ ability to support their children with homework or economic preconditions. One of the conclusions of the study was that the compensatory mission needs to be clarified and be discussed to a greater extent.

This thesis examines how the discursive construction of parenthood in the news media, during the Husby riots of 2013, was affected by social and economical class. News media contributes to shape our perception of reality, our norms and ideals, and what issues that is to be considered important. The family and the effect of child rearing as a process of shaping children into becoming political subjects has been of interest for political science during a long period of time. Previous research shows that social and economical class has a significant effect on norms, ideals and expectations regarding parenthood and child rearing. It is therefore important to study the representation of class in association to parenthood in the news media. Extraordinary events, such as the Husby riots, generate a vast amount of media attention and material. Also, the riots took place in a neighborhood with low socio-economic standard. I have therefore conducted a Foucauldian discourse analysis on a news material consisting of 46 articles and editorials from four of Sweden's biggest news papers: Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Expressen and Svenska Dagbladet, in order to analyze how and which subject positions are established, which characteristics they are assigned and how the construction of parenthood is dependent on social and economical class.The results show that the most common subject positions consists of the police, working class youngsters participating in the riots, children as victims of the riots and working class parents. Language and education is given a prominent part in the discourse, both as an explanation to why the riots broke out in the first place and as a solution to how such social unrest can be avoided in the future. Social and economic class is not mentioned explicitly but is an important implicit discursive construction in the portrayal of parents and children. I therefore conclude that social class and language greatly affected the portrayal and representation of parenthood and child rearing during the Husby Riots of 2013.

In this study I explore the social organization of community gardening in Toronto. I have done this by: exploring (a) the experiences of community garden coordinators hired by non-profit organizations do to improve poor Torontonians’ access to food, and how this work occurs within and is affected by the larger framework of (b) the City of Toronto’s Community Gardens Program. This inquiry was carried out using institutional ethnography, with data collection occurring through open-ended interviews with garden coordinators and the analysis of non-profit and municipal documents. The results of the study are that garden coordinator’s work to improve access to food for poor Torontonians is at odds with the municipal understanding of community gardens and park space existing to attract economic investment to Toronto via “creative professionals.”

In this study I explore the social organization of community gardening in Toronto. I have done this by: exploring (a) the experiences of community garden coordinators hired by non-profit organizations do to improve poor Torontonians’ access to food, and how this work occurs within and is affected by the larger framework of (b) the City of Toronto’s Community Gardens Program. This inquiry was carried out using institutional ethnography, with data collection occurring through open-ended interviews with garden coordinators and the analysis of non-profit and municipal documents. The results of the study are that garden coordinator’s work to improve access to food for poor Torontonians is at odds with the municipal understanding of community gardens and park space existing to attract economic investment to Toronto via “creative professionals.”

This study examines how working women are represented in the news media, and its main aim is to determine to what extent ‘social class’ figures in the representations of women in news content. Using language, visual and narrative analysis, the thesis comprises four case studies each focusing on portrayals of different women from different socio-economic backgrounds determined by their occupation. The first two case studies examine portrayals of low paid working women through coverage of the National Minimum Wage introduction into Britain in April 1999 and the Council Workers’ Strike in England and Wales in 2002. The latter two case studies focus on women in particular professions: elite businesswomen, military women and women war reporters. The study concludes by noting that multiple voices occur in news texts around the key contrasting themes of progress/stagnation and visibility/invisibility and which can give contradictory discourses on the intersection of gender and class. From the massification and silencing of working class women, to the celebrity and sexualisation of the business elite, and the professional competency news frames of middle class women, class was shown to be a determining factor in how women figure in news content. However, these class determinants combined with other news frames pertaining to gender, whereby powerful and established myths of femininity can come to the fore. These myths can be particularly powerful when women enter non-feminine work ‘spaces’ such as business and the military, and class, particularly in the latter case, can tend to slip out of view, as sexist coverage is commonplace and debates are formed about the right and wrong behaviour for women.

Cette étude vise à comprendre les motifs qui peuvent s’avérer source de conflits dans une situation où il est le plus inattendu : les navires de croisières. Nous analysons les constructions de la propagande de vente de croisières avec l’utilisation des mythes marins. Nous nous questionnons ensuite sur la relation entre l’être humain et la mer à partir de la grande diversité mythologique entourant celle-ci ainsi que l’expérience empirique de la vie sur un navire de croisière (également sur un paquebot, cargo et bateau militaire). Dans ce contexte touristique, nous abordons le thème de la rencontre de l’Autre : l’Autre étant les personnes habitant les destinations visitées, les touristes, et principalement, les employés sur le navire responsables du service à la clientèle. Enfin, nous analysons plusieurs conflits représentatifs vécus à bord d’une croisière afin de comprendre les structures conflictuelles ; l’espace, la subordination, les jeux de rôle, les classes sociales, etc. / This study focuses on causes of conflict in a situation least expected: cruise ships. This analysis illustrates the structure of cruising propaganda and how it is linked to oceanic mythologies. Then, the study reveals the connection between humans and the sea, based on the wide mythology and one's empirical experience on a cruise ship (as well as on a liner, cargo or military ship). In a touristic context, this study focuses on the subject of encounter with The Other which, from point of view of the tourist, refers to the locals of the visited destinations, other tourists and mainly the customer service representatives of the cruise lines. The final analysis demonstrates relevant conflicts on board a cruise ship experienced by several informants. The ultimate objective of this study is to understand the causing structures of conflict such as the space, subordination, social roles, social classes, etc.

This dissertation explores how social class matters in young men’s everyday relationship to digital media. The aim is to contribute to the existing knowledge about how young people incorporate digital media in their everyday lives by focusing on the structural premises of this process. It also presents an empirically grounded critique of popular ideas about young people as a “digital generation”, about the internet as a socially transformative force, and about class as an increasingly redundant category. The empirical material consists of qualitative interviews with 34 young men (16-19 years) from different class backgrounds, upper secondary schools and study programmes. Drawing on the conceptual tools of Pierre Bourdieu, three classes are constructed: the “cultural capital rich”, the “upwardly mobile”, and the “cultural capital poor”. The analysis shows that class, through the workings of habitus, structures the young men’s relationship to school and future aspirations. This also engenders class-distinctive ways of conceiving leisure and digital media use. Through their class habitus and taste, the young men tend to orient themselves and navigate in different ways in what they perceive as a space of digital goods and practices, endowed with different symbolic value in school and society. The “cultural capital rich” are drawn to-wards practices capable of yielding symbolic profit in the field of education and beyond, whereas the other classes gravitate towards the “illegitimate” digital culture but deal with this different ways. These findings indicate that there are social and cultural continuities at play within recent technological changes. They also expose the structural differences hidden by sweeping statements about young people as a “digital generation”. Finally, they show that class, contrary to popular beliefs about “the death of class”, still represents a pertinent analytical category.