pp. 695-722

Sociologists have long been interested in the question of transmission, studying it in connection with quite diverse areas : social and occupational identity, economic concerns, religion, political opinions, lifestyles and culture. Those studies usually compare attitudes, possessions, or values of successive generations, either by comparing the generations or collecting « retrospective » information from adult respondents. They are less likely to examine paired parent-children populations, which is the method used here. Data on pre-adolescents and adolescents aged 10 to 14 and their parents were studied to identify modes of cultural transmission. Factors that work to transmit parents’ relation to cultural activities as a whole were then modeled to bring to light the cultural dynamics and stasis between generations and outline a few features characterizing the change in the role played by culture in defining the generations themselves.