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In this work, the main definitions of the « representation » notion are presented, in different fields of psychology : general psychology, social psychology, developmental psychology. Similarities and specificities are drawn and prospects for research in developmental psychology are suggested.

For a Cognitive Sociology of Political Competence
Alfredo Joignant
The concept of "political competence" has for a long time remained forgotten by political scientists. Wrongfully so. As a matter of fact, this notion has been rediscovered by the sociology of labor, in France. In the United States, it has been revisited by the cognitive schools of social psychology (schema theory, social cognition) in order to make sense of the complex relationships that ordinary citizens establish with politics in this field and with its agents. This article deals with the advantages and limits of the concept of political competence, the uses and commitments it authorizes in sociology, social psychology and political science, as well as the controversy it has recently stired.

A socio-psychological approach to intercultural relationships
We will examine the contribution of social psychology to analysis and to the interventions related to psychological and social problems implying a relationship between different cultures. First of all, we examined the term «social psychology». It can be defined as the necessary articulation between the specific operation systems of autonomous organizations on one hand and the social field on the other. Self-representation constitutes a good example of such an articulation. In actual fact, it meets an individual demand in the canonical from «who am I ?» and a set of possible answers which belong to the social field such as : membership of an organization, comparison to others, social standards etc. A number of dysfunctions related to inter-cultural relationships such as delinquency, religious fundamentalism or political extremism, could be described through this pattern.

Continuing Education and Moralization : The Social Function of the Social Psychology of Business.
The aim of the present study is to grasp the relationship between the introduction of techniques inspired by social psychology and the change -or at least the beginning of a change- in the ways of exercizing power in business. The author's observations derive from Personal participation in a program of continuing education or so-called "permanent training". The various stages of this type of training have multiplied since the adoption of the law of 1971, which, it seems, has benefited chiefly managerial and lower-level staff. The study is based on the hypothesis that these stages would be utilized, in a number of cases, as instruments of moralization, designed not so much to provide technical knowledge as to impose a new System of values, itself tied to a new style of command ("non-directiveness", "openess", "creativity", "participation", etc.).
The study focuses, in particular, on a group of lower-level staff who have in common the characteristic of being ill-suited to the posts they hold. The group includes the daughter of a military officer, judged to be too "authoritarian" in her position as head of the typing service, and a programmer of working-class origins who is uncomfortable in his dealings with both his superiors and his subordinates. The author's analysis shows that the social psychology of business probably does not have the power to transform the habitus of the people involved, and thereby to "reform" their behavior in a permanent fashion. All the same, it does possess, at the least, the power of altering their scale of values. As a result, it leads them to recognize the excellence of the new values that "modern" managers of "modern" business concerns have arrogated to themselves. This, perhaps, is the subject's main function.

The territory and intercultural mediation geographical propositions
The geographer considers the material, immaterial and symbolical construction of the relationship with the world on different scales. Stemming from collective knowledge and actions, the social relationship with space is defined as common territory as it results from the acquisition of social practices. In this sense, the territory expresses human representations, attitudes, identities and values, introduces us into the field of social psychology and clarifies the study of the interactions between individuals and groups of different cultures.

Jocelyn Raude
Perception of risk : theories and empirical data
During the last decades, the perception of risk in terms of health and the environment has become a major stake in developed societies. The organisation and durability of a number of human activities indeed seems to depend greatly on its nature and development through time – whether we are thinking of the nuclear field or food-processing biotechnologies. For a long time, the perception of risk was considered to be irrational and was rejected from the field of expert appraisal. However, it has been the subject of much remarkable theoretical and empirical work in the social sciences. Generally speaking, scientific literature tends to be centred around three dominant paradigms which stem from fields as varied as micro-economics, cognitive psychology, social psychology, sociology and anthropology. Beyond the methodological differences, the empirical date collected from these diff erent approaches demonstrate that the perception of risk in contemporary societies constitutes a complex, multidimensional phenomenon which – far from being arbitrary – presents a certain rationality and a certain foreseeable nature on both the psychological and sociological level.

Legal socialization (LS) as an inquiry field and term were pioneered in the late 1960s. LS deals with emergent legal attitudes/actions and use of "legal" Systems — primarily "the law" — to facilitate human affairs and achieve an ethical legality. This paper reviews initial efforts and the 25-year sojourn mapping "legal" worlds of over 8000 children and adults in home, school, court or prison settings. It describes the originating definition of legal socialization ; its correlative biosocial cognitive theory of legality ; cross cultural, — age, and — situational findings ; a Wounded Knee jury study ; and a US- USSR youth survey. These studies chronicle LS research attempts to relate conduct codes and critical compliance to "the law". They also raise theoretical and methodological, culturel and empirical questions, pertinent to law and psychology as contemporary socializers across cultures.