Social Interaction

The Centre for Research on Social intercations was born of long-standing interdisciplinary and inter-faculty collaborations in the University whose aim is the study of interpersonal interaction processes. The Centre aims to produce and promote interdisciplinary research on social interactions and contribute to the training of young scientists. Projects undertaken by the 6 research groups in the Centre target key social issues :

Trajectories of young people (education and integration);
Work processes (coordination in groups, hierarchy management, and resolution of tasks by collaborative processes);
Effectiveness of institutional functioning (performance, conflicts, and negotiations);
Relationships between individuals and institutions.

These issues are analyzed in a variety of empirical fields (business, school, health care institutions, courts, and public institutions in general) whose complexity requires interdisciplinary investigations based on combined research methodologies.

The researchers gathered in the center share a common perspective of social interaction that highlights three scientific concerns:

social interactions involve the trade and reproduction of knowledge, symbolic references, interpersonal relationships, and functioning of institutions and social traditions ;
relationships between individuals and institutions evolve through empirically observable social practices;
interaction competence as social capital.

These concerns meet current questions of fundamental and applied research on the relationship between inter-individual social practices and institutional frameworks and the construction and circulation of knowledge.

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