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The article discusses the statistical approach to ethnic and racial social relations in France. It explores social scientists' development of strategies on proxies for ethnic and racial categories. Variables such as names, nationality, and language spoken at home are suggested to allow for building categories that are not significantly remote from ethnic ones. The alleged duty of the social sciences to objectify groups that start denouncing what they consider to be discrimination is also examined.

The article discusses issues relating to the scientific and political aspects of ethnic categories in France's official statistics as well as practical problems involved in the use of such categories. It examines how the refusal to create religious and ethnic categories is partly related to the French sociological tradition. The difficulty of seeing how ethnic categories could be built for use in public statistics in a disinterested and impartial way is explored. The author argues that ethnic statistics run counter to the French integration tradition.

This article looks at the history of statistics concerning race relations in the United States. The terminology used in this discussion is presented which includes white, black, Asian, American Indian, Pacific Islander, and other. The political considerations of these figures are also examined. Several questions are explored including whether these terms benefit those that they describe. The authors attempt to discover the politics behind these statistics as they argue that none of the figures are neutral but always provide a bias. However, they also propose that they have effected positive results in racial and ethnic discrimination in the United States.

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Copyright of Revue Française de Sociologie is the property of Presses de Sciences Po and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents an introduction to this issue on the sociology of values. Many of the articles in this issue make use of surveys and statistical methods including the European Social Survey.