Ever since Durkheim, the relationship between ritual and sociability has been a primary theme of theoretical reflection in sociology. The article highlights a number of aspects relating to that theme and explores the question of whether ritual change – posited by the author as an historical evidence – can be adequately understood in this way, notably in terms of its societal implications. In the second half, the author presents a detailed analysis of a number of issues that emerge when ritualisation is considered as a continuous historical process. The prerequisites and mechanisms of ritualisation are at the core of this reflection, in particular in exploring how routine action, ritual experience and symbolic auto-declaration can be deployed in the context of the creation of social ties.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce, define and test a theoretical model which explains elderly people's use of urban shopping centres as places for social exchange. We suggest that elderly people use shopping centres to satisfy social and leisure are individual or predisposing variables and environmental or encouraging variables which differentiate elderly people who engage in this activity. Using a secondary data analysis of a probability sample of 300 non-institutionalized elderly people in Montreal, we found that mallingering is an activity that 67 per cent of this sample do in three shopping centres in this city. Predisposing variables such as age, gender, education and feelings of loneliness, along with encouraging variables such as design and ambiance of the centre are related to this activity. Based on these findings, we suggest that this model contributes to our understanding of the leisure activities of non-institutionalized elderly people.

Social cohesion is frequently mentioned in political discourse. However this concept remains vague and ill-defined. We intend to propose a typology of social cohesion patterns and examine under which conditions this concept might be used. Firstly, we sketch a brief history of its introduction in the political debate. Then we sort out three different meanings of this concept, in order to analyze which representations it is associated with.