Socialization and cognition - Talk by Jean-Claude Croizet and Mathias Millet

We will have the third seminar of the "Toward an integrative cognitive science of social inequalities" series this Thursday, March 9. The seminar will take place at 16h in the Neurocampus amphitheater and online. Pr. Jean-Claude Croizet and Pr. Mathias Millet will be jointly presenting a talk entitled "Socialization and cognition. How schools contribute to social differentiation in performance". Note that the talk will be in French. 

Please see below for an abstract and biographies of Pr. Croizet and Pr. Millet.

Here is the Zoom link if you wish to attend online:
https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/91371642509?pwd=L2lGTmtiVEQyaE8rM1lGQVJVSzZndz09
Meeting ID: 913 7164 2509
Passcode: LC7kmE

You can find the full schedule of the seminar series here:
https://forms.gle/gYoE9dWLwPZettXC9

 

Socialization and cognition. How schools contribute to social differentiation in performance

Abstract (English): Although it is now commonly accepted that cognitive processes depend on inseparable biological and social realities, the question often remains open as to how the social relations in which individuals are caught up concretely organize their mental and behavioral dispositions. Thus, we can ask how socially constructed logics, such as socio-economic status or educational arrangements, determine the functioning of executive functions. One possible answer to this question is to see cognition as a socialized activity, neither purely individual nor solely internal. It can then be seen as the product of the more or less happy or unhappy encounter between socially constituted and situated habits on the one hand, inherited from experiences and social conditions of existence, and situations with constraining socio-cognitive properties on the other, which prescribe repertoires of action and specific modes of thought. From this perspective, this presentation will focus on the way in which school contributes to the social differentiation of the performance of students from different socio-economic backgrounds. Based on a series of investigations linking sociology and social psychology, ethnography and experiments in the natural environment, the aim will be to understand how the demands made on the school's pedagogical systems and the conceptions of learning implemented create inequalities in knowledge and performance between pupils from different social classes.


Socialisation et cognition. Comment l’école contribue à la différenciation sociale des performances ?

Abstract (French): S’il est aujourd’hui couramment admis que les processus cognitifs dépendent de réalités indissociablement biologiques et sociales, la question reste souvent ouverte de savoir comment les relations sociales dans lesquelles sont pris les individus organisent concrètement leurs dispositions mentales et comportementales. C’est ainsi que l’on peut interroger la manière dont des logiques socialement construites, par exemple un statut socio-économique ou un dispositif pédagogique, déterminent le fonctionnement de fonctions exécutives. Une réponse possible à cette interrogation consiste à voir dans la cognition une activité socialisée, ni purement individuelle, ni seulement intérieure. Elle peut alors être envisagée comme le produit de la rencontre plus ou moins heureuse ou malheureuse entre des habitudes socialement constituées et situées d’un côté, héritées des expériences et des conditions sociales d’existence, et des situations aux propriétés sociocognitives contraignantes de l’autre, qui prescrivent des répertoires d’action et des modes de pensée spécifiques. Fort de cette perspective, cette communication s’intéressera à la manière dont l’école contribue à la différenciation sociale des performances d’élèves de statuts socio-économiques variés. Il s’agira de comprendre, à partir d’une série d’enquêtes liant sociologie et psychologie sociale, ethnographie et expérimentations en milieu naturel, comment les sollicitations inscrites dans ses dispositifs pédagogiques et les conceptions de l’apprentissage mise en œuvre fabriquent des inégalités de savoirs et de performances entre des élèves de différentes classes sociales.

 

Bios: Jean-Claude Croizet is Professor of Social Psychology, affiliated with the Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale et Cognitive (UMR CNRS 6024) at the Université Clermont-Auvergne. Experimental psychologist, he studies the psychology of social reproduction in educational contexts with a particular focus on the impact of symbolic power on students’ cognitive performance. His work has been published in various academic journals including Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Psychological Science, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General etc. With Dr. Mathias Millet, he published a book entitled "L’école des incapables ? La maternelle, un apprentissage de la domination" [The school of the incapables? Kindergarten, an apprenticeship of domination] (2016, La Dispute), upon which the talk will be based. Dr. Croizet is a past member of the Executive Committee of the European Association of Social Psychology and a Fellow of the Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. 

Mathias Millet is professor of sociology, affiliated to the Groupe de REcherches Sociologiques sur les sociétés COntemporaine (GRESCO, UR 1075), at the University of Poitiers. As a sociologist of socialisation, schooling and the working classes, he studies the educational inequalities that are played out in the confrontation between modes of socialisation and learning (at university, at school and in the family), and is interested in the contradictions linked to the schooling of the working classes and the relationships of cultural domination. He is the author of several books, including (with S. Beaud) L'Université pour quoi faire? Paris, Puf, la-vie-des-idées, 2021, La société des diplômes (with Gilles Moreau), Paris, La Dispute, 2011 ; Ruptures scolaires. L'école à l'épreuve de la question sociale (with Daniel Thin), Paris, Puf, coll. Le lien social, 2005; Les étudiants et le travail universitaire, Lyon, Presses universitaires de Lyon, 2003.