Academic dissertations and scientific practices: uses of the monograph in sociology and social work at Laval University, 1943–1965
This article presents a comparative analysis of the uses of the monograph in social work and sociology from the 1940s to the 1960s at Laval University. The author analyzes the role of the monograph in relation to the drawing of boundaries between sociology and social work, as academic disciplines, and highlights the duality between theory and empirical research in the social organization of the social sciences. The article moreover shows the “gendered” and hierarchical character of this duality that contributes to the reproduction of gender inequalities in academia. After recalling the conditions for the creation of the two disciplines at Laval University and after analyzing the monographic approach of students at this university in their dissertations and final-year theses, the author compares two survey works carried out in the early 1960s, that of Fernand Dumont (with Yves Martin), director of the department of sociology, and that of Simone Paré, director of the School of Social Work.