Léonie Bisang, Marlene Schuster & Guillemette de Larquier (2025)
In Rainer Diaz-Bone & Guillemette de Larquier (eds.), Handbook of economics and sociology of conventions. Cham: Springer, Online first

Abstract. Economics and sociology of conventions (in short EC/SC), also known as convention theory, offers a theoretical framework centered on the concepts of orders of worth and justifications as introduced by Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot. While EC/SC has been applied across various fields and empirical phenomena, it was rarely used to analyze gender until the early 2000s. This chapter introduces EC/SC as a valuable perspective for examining gender issues and outlines three manners of discussing gender within the framework: (1) Boltanski contributed early on to the analysis of gender-sensitive topics, even if his reflections on gender and gender inequalities have been criticized by feminists; (2) in the early 2000s, French scholars of EC/SC independently developed, as a first manner, gender and family conventions. The lines of inquiry were later pursued beyond France as well; and (3) in parallel to the theoretical developments, various scholars have applied EC/SC, mainly “orders of worth,” to gender issues in the fields of education and training, labor and employment, entrepreneurship, family, sports, and public space.
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
GdL (7 octobre 2025). Gender and Convention Theory. Économie des conventions. Consulté le 11 juin 2026 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/14ve8