This area is concerned with the socialisation actions that structure an individual's life cycle. The research carried out by the members of this area focuses on different ages (infancy, childhood, 'youth', entry into adult life, etc.) as well as on the bodies or institutions that provide the framework for these actions (the family, schools, vocational training, higher education and public policies, particularly cultural policies). 

The work is based on a relational conception of socialisation, not reducible to a unilateral learning process, but rather defined as a relationship of exchanges between generations, whether these relationships be of solidarity or mutual aid, of transmission (of knowledge, material or symbolic goods, etc.) or of competition or conflict. 

The originality of this area lies in its cross-disciplinary approach, which aims to link the sectoral fields of the sociology of the family, education, art and culture through the analysis of social practices.