Les Lois et le changement culturel: Le handicap en Italie et en France

This research proposes integration between psychology and sociology. A psychological theoretical model conceiving behaviors and social relationships as the product of the social unconscious processes was used to study a social phenomenon: the cultural change produced by the enactment of laws. In particular, the cultural change occurred following the enactment of laws for people with disabilities was studied in Italy and in France. To this end, a text analysis procedure to study social phenomena was developed, tested and used to understand how the enactment of laws on disability produced a cultural change on a national scale, in university training and on the labour market. Results show that the analysis procedure produces a significant gain in terms of time and resources, allowing to connect the unconscious categories with social actors' behaviors. They also highlight the differences between the current representation of disability and that of the past described in literature. Therefore, the enactment of laws seems to enable a cultural change producing innovative practices that are associated with peculiar forms of culture. In conclusion the use of the concept of social unconscious to study social phenomena, seems to facilitate the understanding of the actors' behaviors.