Jean-Claude Passeron


Jean-Claude Passeron is a French sociologist and leader of social science studies. As part of a mixed interdisciplinary team involving sociologists, historians, and anthropologists, he led the magazine Enquêtes.

Biography

In Paris, Jean-Claude Passeron studied philosophy and sociology at École Normale Supérieure. During the 1960s, he and Pierre Bourdieu did two studies of the sociology of education. With Jean-Claude Chamboredon and Bourdieu, he published Le Métier de sociologue, a reference work and epistemology work of the social sciences on cultural reproduction.
He led the sociology department at l'Université de Nantes, going often to Paris to lead studies. In 1968, he was part of the group which founded le Centre Universitaire Expérimental de Vincennes, an avant-garde pedagogic project that today has become l'Université Paris VIII.
He also worked with Jean-Claude Chamboredon, Robert Castel, Claude Grignon, Michel Grumbach and François de Singly. He studied the sociology of culture and the sociology of the arts. In 1991, he published Le Raisonnement sociologique, a book which had an impact on epistemology of the social sciences.

Publications