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Article dans une revue Popular Communication Année : 2012

The French School of Demography: Contextualizing Demographic Analysis.

Résumé

demographic analysis, according to Pressat's Dictionary of Demography, is "a form of statistical analysis which employs, for the most part, a modest array of mathematical and statistical techniques to deal with the data produced by censuses, surveys and vital registration systems" (1985: 52). in this essay we explore the methodological advances in this field between the 1960s and the late 1990s. we argue, against the grain of the standard definition of the subject, that these efforts were directed at refining demographic analysis in a quest for scientific purity, to the exclusion of other objectives. as Green- halgh puts it, despite what alternative histories of the field might suggest, "the conventional rhetoric of steady scientific progress continues to dominate discussions of the creation of population thought" (2012: 122). demography, we believe, has paid a high price for this narrowing of focus. epistemological questions such as the conceptualization of the individual and the treatment of culture have been eluded; ideological biases have entered. we argue that an alternative paradigm, more open to interdisciplinarity, should be explored.
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hal-00840267, version 1 (02-07-2013)

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  • HAL Id : hal-00840267 , version 1

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Véronique Petit, Yves Charbit. The French School of Demography: Contextualizing Demographic Analysis.. Popular Communication, 2012, 38 (SuPPlement), pp.305-316. ⟨hal-00840267⟩
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