ABSTRACT
The sociology of culture in France has the particularity, even when it is critical, of being based on the interpretation of the same statistical corpus, produced by the Ministry of Culture. The series of “surveys on the cultural practices of the French”, initiated in 1973, has served as an empirical basis for all currents of research, imposing a framework of thought and issues linked to the central question of unequal access to culture-understood as a set of works and practices of excellence. In this chapter, three sociologists coming from distinctive intellectual traditions discuss this conceptual approach and its consequences for the interpretation of the way different categories of the population relate to culture.
