This text is part of the special notebook The 100 years of Guy Rocher
Guy Rocher says it is the profession of teacher that he attached the most importance to.
In an interview with the essayist Georges Khal published in 1989 under the title Guy Rocher. Between dreams and historysociologist Guy Rocher surprises when his interviewer asks him what he considers his greatest achievement.
We would have expected him to answer “my role in the Parent Commission” (to which we owe the creation of the Ministry of Education and CEGEPs). Or, “my contribution to Law 101” (he had been Camille Laurin’s deputy minister). Or again, “my major work, Introduction to general sociology », translated into six languages.
No. Guy Rocher answers simply: “Teaching is the greatest achievement of my life. This is where I think I put the most of my heart and myself. […] It is to this profession of teacher that I attached the most importance. »
Firstly a professor and pedagogue
Céline Saint-Pierre, professor emeritus of sociology at UQAM, was in the first sociology course given by Guy Rocher upon his arrival at the University of Montreal in 1960.
“I discovered a great professor with exceptional teaching abilities who did not compromise on reading and assignment requirements. His courses were carefully prepared, the content was dense, but very structured, stimulating and demanding. »
At the time, it had been eight years since Guy Rocher returned from Harvard, where he had done two years of doctoral studies with the great theoretician Talcott Parsons. During the eight years he taught sociology at Laval University, between 1952 and 1960, Guy Rocher completed his doctoral thesis while developing his famous introductory course, mandatory for all students in the Faculty of Social Sciences.
When he arrived in Montreal in 1960 to direct the new sociology department at the University of Montreal – and two years later become vice-dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences – Guy Rocher had already left his mark on his contemporaries. “This introductory course was his trademark. But he was very important in my development as a sociologist,” says Louis Maheu, professor emeritus in the Department of Sociology at the University of Montreal, who himself headed the Department from 1981 to 1984, and who had taken the course of Guy Rocher upon entering university in 1963.
“He managed to hold the attention of large auditoriums. He loved the classrooms and the exchanges with the students,” says Céline Saint-Pierre who, as a student, was destined for a career as a documentary filmmaker at the NFB. However, the teaching example of Guy Rocher led her to branch out towards a career as a professor of more than 30 years before being appointed president of the Higher Council of Education, which she led from 1997 to 2002. “With him, I understood the difference between giving a lecture and giving a course. »
Louis Maheu remembers that the students were very aware of being in front of a great professor who was introducing them to different currents: structuralism, functionalism, Marxism, etc.
Having completed his doctorate in Paris with Alain Touraine, Louis Maheu explains that Guy Rocher perfectly bears comparison with the founder of French sociology. “Touraine wrote and spoke a lot, but it was heavy. Guy Rocher was incredibly clear. I have never seen anyone express such complex ideas so clearly with such ease. » Other great sociologists, such as the British Anthony Giddens and the American Talcott Parsons, were able to present rich ideas, but Guy Rocher was “the clearest”, he says. “He could wield both a communication strategy and an exploration strategy without ever diminishing the scope of what he was saying. »
Guy Rocher gave his two-hour course in a masterly manner, without humor, but with a warmth and empathy that sustained attention, recalls Céline Saint-Pierre, who deciphered the course in the accompanying seminar and led the students in a field work which consisted of making sociology a profession of their choice.
One of her mantras, she emphasizes, was to get students to resist the temptation to do anything. “Everyone is a bit of a “sociologist”, but true sociology presupposes a method, scientific rigor and theoretical mastery. »
His monument
This is precisely the intention that he cites in his three-volume book published in 1968-1969, Introduction to general sociology. “I specifically sought […] to bring the sociological approach back to its most fundamental problematic, so as to concentrate attention on the essential elements of sociology, thus avoiding the dispersion of vision and imagination from which those who are initiated into sociology too often suffer. this science. »
Guy Rocher began writing this book in 1966, while thinking about it for several years. At the time, he confided to Georges Khal, he was already aware of being the only French-speaking sociologist to have specialized in teaching elements of sociology. He wanted to do the sum of 14 years of teaching, but the Parent commission took up a lot of time between 1961 and 1966.
Louis Maheu believes that this work is the monument to Guy Rocher’s career. In the historiography of this science, still nascent at the time, Guy Rocher occupies a very particular niche, according to him. “The typical introductory book will begin with the first chapter on what sociology is and then explain the sociology of religions, education, family, culture, professions, social stratification, etc. ., chapter by chapter. »
However, Guy Rocher chooses instead to structure his work around a theoretical reflection by devoting a volume to each of these three major questions: how human action becomes “social”; how society is organized; and how change occurs. “It is an important intellectual work which demonstrates a very complex and very mastered analytical approach. To succeed in this, it takes intellectual strength,” says Professor Maheu.
With this book, which extends his course, Guy Rocher also seeks to fill the absence of a general work in French when the only works offered on general sociology were in English. Céline Saint-Pierre explains that she learned English by trying to understand what she read. “But it was deeply unfair because we read one book while the English speakers had time to read four,” she says. The professor is an important interface, because he constructs the sociological language, and Guy Rocher did it in French. »
Guy Rocher is then, moreover, the only great sociologist to bridge the gap between European and American trends. In 1972, he published with the Presses universitaire de France Talcott Parsons and American sociologywhich “the French did not know”, by Alain Touraine’s own admission, says Louis Maheu.
The latter, looking back over the years, is struck both by the influence of Guy Rocher, but also by his disinterestedness. “There is no such thing as a “Rocherian” school of thought. This is remarkable from such an influential figure. He never forced anyone to adhere to what he thought or forced anyone to think within any pre-established framework. Among the great sociologists, he stands out for his freedom. »
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