How is Sociology really useful?

How is Sociology really useful? Can the sociologist, a creator of knowledge, submit to a principle of utility? Is he a dissenter, an ideologist, an expert...? Does a sociologist, who so quickly judges the utility of other disciplines, ask himself the same question?

A discerning observer of important social questions (education, social movements, the suburbs, justice) Francois Dubet invites us to share his sociological gaze.

Without any heroism nor boastfulness, the preent-day sociologist may appear to be somewhat like a modest field worker, confronted with the prose of the world, offering his services to society, investigating, verifying, often advising, sometimes criticising. But whenever religious myths and social contracts do not sufficiently explain how societies maintain, form and transform themselves, the sociologist can step in and respond to the need of modern societies to know one another and act on themselves.

Neither an apologist nor a pessimist, Francois Dubet sheds light on the suspicion with which we view sociology and gives us an inside account, taking us off the beaten track.