Jean Stoetzel (23 April 1910,

Saint-Dié-des-Vosges Saint-Dié-des-Vosges (; german: Sankt Didel), commonly referred to as just Saint-Dié, is a commune in the Vosges department in Grand Est in northeastern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department. Geography Saint-Dié is located in the ...

- 21 February 1987,

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

) was a French sociologist.

Biography

He had Alsacian and Lorrainian descent.Jean Stoetzel
//

Encyclopædia Universalis The ''Encyclopædia Universalis'' is a French-language general encyclopedia published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., a privately held company. The articles of the ''Encyclopædia Universalis'' are aimed at educated adult readers, and writt ...

Stoetzel had studied in

Lycée Louis-le-Grand The Lycée Louis-le-Grand (), also referred to simply as Louis-le-Grand or by its acronym LLG, is a public Lycée (French secondary school, also known as sixth form college) located on rue Saint-Jacques in central Paris. It was founded in the ...

, in a preparatory class for superior schools (''écoles supérieures'')Alain Girar
Jean Stoetzel (1910—1987)
Revue française de sociologie, Année 1987, 28-2, pp. 201—211 In 1932, he entered

École normale supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

е.Valade, Bernard.
Jean Stoetzel: théorie des opinions et psychosociologie de la communication
» Hermès, La Revue 2 (2007): 72-74. In 1938, he visited

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. There he get to know the methods of

opinion poll An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll (although strictly a poll is an actual election) is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions ...

ing by

George Gallup George Horace Gallup (November 18, 1901 – July 26, 1984) was an American pioneer of survey sampling techniques and inventor of the Gallup poll, a successful statistical method of survey sampling for measuring public opinion. Life and career ...

.Philip Nor
France’s New Deal: From the Thirties to the Postwar Era
p. 83-84 Upon return to France, he founded

Institut français d'opinion publique The Institut français d'opinion publique (IFOP; en, French Institute of Public Opinion, link=yes) is an international polling and market research firm, whose motto is "Connection creates value". It was founded on 1 December 1938 by Jean Stoetzel ...

, the first French organization to conduct opinion polling. Amongst the questions asked were the position of French on

Édouard Daladier Édouard Daladier (; 18 June 1884 – 10 October 1970) was a French Radical-Socialist (centre-left) politician, and the Prime Minister of France who signed the Munich Agreement before the outbreak of World War II. Daladier was born in Carpentr ...

's politics with respect to "German threat", the opinion of birth rate decline, etc. Although Stoetzel methods were quite crude, he managed to detect rightward shift in French public mood. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he was a

liaison officer A Liaison officer is a person who liaises between two or more organizations to communicate and coordinate their activities on a matter of mutual concern. Generally, liaison officers are used for achieving the best utilization of resources, or empl ...

with British army and fought in

Battle of Dunkirk The Battle of Dunkirk (french: Bataille de Dunkerque, link=no) was fought around the French port of Dunkirk (Dunkerque) during the Second World War, between the Allies and Nazi Germany. As the Allies were losing the Battle of France on ...

. Afterwards, he returned to

occupied France The Military Administration in France (german: Militärverwaltung in Frankreich; french: Occupation de la France par l'Allemagne) was an interim occupation authority established by Nazi Germany during World War II to administer the occupied zo ...

and taught philosophy in a secondary school. Stoetzel became a Doctor of Philosophy in 1943. He was a sociology professor at the

University of Bordeaux The University of Bordeaux (French: ''Université de Bordeaux'') is a public university based in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. It has several campuses in the cities and towns of Bordeaux, Dax, Gradignan, Périgueux, Pessac, and Ta ...

1943-1954, and he was a social psychology professor at the

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

1955-1978. In 1977, Stoetzel was elected a member of

Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, f ...

. He was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in 1979.

References

{{Authority control 20th-century French people French sociologists Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni École Normale Supérieure alumni Members of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques Members of the American Philosophical Society