For a sociology of ethnomethods to understand the world of education: Alain Coulon’s contributions

Abstract

The paper results from an interview with Alain Coulon, French researcher responsible for the development of the studies in ethnomethodology applied to education within French Sociology. The innovative character of his line of investigation, inspired by the ideas of Garfinkel and Cicourel, has fostered a host of studies about university students, in a time of transformations in the French higher education system. Since the 1980s French universities have gone through intense expansion of opportunities in their access, and have received a wide and heterogeneous population of students, which in turn have demanded new approaches to understand their academic experience. The field of investigation chosen by Alain Coulon was the empirical material that allowed him not only to put forward new research methodologies, but also to formulate new categories of analysis in the effort to clarify these new phenomena. Among them, the concept of affiliation has taken special relevance. His theoretical influence has reached several countries after his main works were translated into many languages including German, English, and Japanese. In Brazil, his dialogue with local researchers gave support to the creation of Observatories of student life in several universities, as well as to systematized initiatives of affiliation and academic success, which turned out to be a promising direction for future studies. The recent growth experienced by the Brazilian higher education system has given rise to significant research challenges, and these will be dealt with more forcefully through the dialogue with researchers that are attempting to understand this new reality, with the purpose of overcoming the persistent and structural inequalities that have historically shaped Brazilian university.