Jean-Claude Passeron, Sociologist and Co-Author of Les Héritiers, Dies at 95

Jean-Claude Passeron, the sociologist who wrote Les Héritiers and La Reproduction with Pierre Bourdieu, died during the night of October 29 to 30, 2026, at the age of 95, ActuaLitté reported, citing an announcement from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS). In a tribute published on October 30, the school called him "une figure majeure de son histoire," a major figure in its history.

The books with Bourdieu

Born in Nice on November 26, 1930, Passeron went to the École normale supérieure and passed the agrégation in philosophy. In 1961 he joined the Centre de sociologie européenne, and that is where his work with Bourdieu began.

Their 1964 book, Les Héritiers. Les étudiants et la culture, published by Éditions de Minuit, used statistics and university surveys to show unequal access to higher education by social background and sex. It argued that familiarity with school and university culture, picked up in some families, helps students succeed and can pass for personal talent.

In 1968 he co-signed Le Métier de sociologue with Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Chamboredon, a book on the scientific foundations of the discipline. Two years later came La Reproduction, again with Bourdieu, which developed the idea of symbolic violence to explain how schools help legitimize and pass on social hierarchies.

Readers, images and libraries

His work reached beyond schools into how people use culture. In 1970 Passeron took part in the French translation of La Culture du pauvre, by the British sociologist Richard Hoggart, and wrote its introduction. With Michel Grumbach he directed L'Œil à la page, a study of images and audiovisual material in eight public libraries, published in 1984 by the Bibliothèque publique d'information of the Centre Pompidou.

In 1989 he and Claude Grignon published Le Savant et le populaire, on two opposite ways of treating popular culture: looking down on it, or idealizing it. Le Raisonnement sociologique, which followed from Nathan two years later, examined what counts as proof in the social sciences.

A builder of institutions

He set up a sociology department at the University of Nantes after arriving there in 1966, and in 1968 he helped found the department at Vincennes. The EHESS elected him a director of studies in 1981. He went on to help the school establish itself in Marseille, at the Vieille Charité, and started the journal Enquête.

In October 2025 the EHESS press published three interviews with him as Un itinéraire de sociologue. He talks there about his training, his research and the posts he held. ActuaLitté says the Académie des sciences morales et politiques then handed him a special prize, both for that book and for the whole of his work.