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JEAN-PIERRE BRIAND, JEAN-RIICHEL CIIAPOULIE, HENRI PERETZ Les statistiques scolaires comme représentation et cornme activité * Chaque signe d lui seul semble mort. Qu'est-ce qui lui donne vie ? C'est dans l'usage qu'il vit. At -il là, a lui, le souffle vital? O u est-ce l'usage qui est son souffle vital ? CL. W r r r o~~s m : Philosophische Untersuchungen, 432.) (*) Nous remercions Dominique Merl-Une première ébauche de cette recherlié, Jean Peneff, ainsi que le Comité de che avait fait l'objet d'un exposé dans rédaction de la Revue française de sociole cadre du groupe de travail organisé logie qui, par leurs critiques de la pre-par F. Ringer à la Maison des sciences mière version de ce texte nous ont de l'homme en 1977. conduits à expliciter notre démarche.

Until quite recently, questionnaire surveys, semi‐structured interviews and the gathering and interpreting of various documents have been the main kinds of empirical research to be found in French sociology. Observation plays a leading role in none of them, even in the latter. The researchers who use it do not seem convinced of its legitimacy, because what can be expected from systematic observation does not fit the prevailing purpose of developing abstract, general theories. After having sketched out the institutional and intellectual background, this paper examines a few examples of French studies using observation. Most of them fail to clearly distinguish between indirect evidence and direct observation, between meaning as construed by the observer and that experienced by the people observed; they rarely report dated and situated facts (even more seldom behaviors than settings), and they replace the expected analyses of these missing facts with the interpretation of would‐be typical or usual facts.

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