ABSTRACT
Raymond Boudon was born in Paris in 1934 and, together with Michel Crozier, Alain Touraine and Pierre Bourdieu, he is part of the second generation of French sociologists who have helped to establish sociology as an academic discipline (Bell, 1998). Often praised for the clarity of his style and the extensive use of illustrative examples, Boudon is the author of a vast body of work whose main themes include education, social stratification and social mobility; the sociology of knowledge and the philosophy of the social sciences; classical social theory and, more recently, human values. This ‘thematic nomadism’ can largely be rendered responsible for the constant attention his work has attracted world-wide, placing him among the most important contemporary sociologists.
