ABSTRACT
Every academic system participates to a greater or lesser degree both in the production and in the reproduction of the social order. The American academic situation corresponds clearly to the production of a new social order. Its creativity is explained by its close ties to the main cultural themes of evolutionism, historicism, and utilitarianism, which are summed up in the key word: progress. The socialization to university norms is inseparable from the creation by the university of an ideology of continuity and tradition. This new ideology is quite different from the theme of progress and thus from the intention to break with the past that had characterized the progressivism or utilitarianism of the end of the nineteenth century. The social hierarchy involves both an internal stratification and exclusions, that serves the economy but that also introduces an ideological conception linked to the dominant forces of society, and that can be dysfunctional in its rational use of manpower and talent.
