The Author: Nathalie Bulle is Researcher in the French National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS) with the Methods of Sociological Analysis Research Group (GEMAS), Paris. She is the author of La rationalité des décisions scolaires (1999), Ecole et Société - Les paradoxes de la démocratie (2001, ed. with R. Boudon et M. Cherkaoui) and L'école et son double. Essai sur l'évolution pédagogique en France (to be published).

Contents: The psychogenesis of cognitive development - The sociogenesis of cognitive development - Cognitive development and formal education - Theories of knowledge and educational principles - Karl Marx - Émile Durkheim - George H. Mead - Talcott Parsons - Alfred Schütz - Raymond Boudon - Structuralism and education: The axiological / motivational level - The logical / cognitive level - The symbolic / expressive level - Action and interaction in sociology of education: The axiological / motivational level - The cognitive / logical level - The symbolic / expressive level - Karl Marx and the school of labor - Naturalism, social utopia and education in the work of Herbert Spencer - Lester F. Ward and democracy through universalization of knowledge - John Dewey and education for democracy - The «problems of democratization of culture» according to Karl Mannheim - Pragmatism, sociology and knowledge: Durkheim's criticism - Functional approaches - Conflict theories - Interactionist approaches - Educational systems and occupational systems - Impact of social variables on academic achievement - Impact of institutional variables on academic achievement.