Finding a “mystery profession”
Type de matériel :
75
This article aims to understand how individuals manage, or fail, to find the occupation of an unknown (but real) person from a series of clues. It is based on an experimental survey using a digital tablet that we developed as an extension of games designed in the early 1980s by Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot as part of the renewal of the French socio-professional classification (CSP). The survey makes it possible to analyze the ability of individuals to read the social structure. The ways of playing show the importance of the social stereotypes crystallized in the ordinary representations in guessing the occupations. While adjusted to the personal situation of the players, the clues they select delimit a restricted set of social markers perceived as relevant for finding one’s way in social space. Success in playing does not only, or even mainly, reflect the educational hierarchy of the respondents: It also depends on reflexive dispositions to interpret social structures that are linked to the social mobility of individuals, their interest in politics or their intimate knowledge of the professions to be found.
Réseaux sociaux