This book investigates the social conditions that underpin career choices based on a search for self-fulfilment rather than for material stability by focusing on the case of cultural managers. In the process, it proposes an innovative take on the analysis of social reproduction in contemporary Western countries.

Vincent Dubois, sociologist and political scientist, is currently Professor at the Institute for Political Studies in Strasbourg (France). His research fields include cultural sociology and policy, language policy, poverty and welfare. He belongs to the SAGE research unit and to the University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Study, and is associate member of the Centre for European Sociology founded by Pierre Bourdieu in Paris. He is a former member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, USA, school of social science (2012-3) and of the Institut Universitaire de France (2007-12). He has published 8 books, 2 of which have been published in English translation (The Bureaucrat and the Poor, Ashgate, 2010; The Sociology of Wind Bands, Ashgate, 2013). He has published around 80 scientific contributions in edited volumes and journals including International Journal of Cultural Policy, Cultural Sociology, Poetics, Social Analysis, Current Anthropology, Critical Policy Studies, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales.

Introduction 1. Culture in the Space of Career Choices 1.1. How Cultural Occupations Became Attractive 1.1.1. The Rise of Cultural Employment 1.1.2. Cultural Managers: Professional labels and vocations 1.1.3. An Attractive Sector Despite Poor Employment Conditions 1.1.4. The Attraction of Uncertainty 1.2. Training and the Genesis of Vocations 1.2.1. The Development of Specialized Training Programs in Cultural Management 1.2.2. The Structured of the Specialized Training Supply 1.2.3. The Effects of the Specialization of Training 2. Who Wants to be a Cultural Manager? 2.1. A Largely Feminine Vocation 2.2. Higher Social Backgrounds 2.3. Educated Applicants 2.4. Well-Rounded Applicants 2.5. The Space of Applicants 3. The Meanings of a Career Choice 3.1. Leaving Doors Open 3 1.1. A Genuine Choice 3.1.2. The Narratives of Vocation 3.1.3. Choosing the Cultural Sector Rather Than a Given Occupation 3.2. A Third Way between Art and Teaching 3.2.1. Teaching as a Foil 3.2.2. The Artistic Vocation as a Reference 3.3. The Social Rationales of a Career Choice 3.3.1. Dreams of Social Mobility 3.3.2. Professional Reproduction 3.3.3. A Devalued Cultural Capital and a Reinvested Educational Capital 3.3.4. Self-Assertion 4. Intermediary Dispositions and Adjustment Strategies 4.1. Between Cultural Legitimism and Eclecticism 4.2. Reinvesting the Artist's Life 4.2.1. Re-Enchanting Work 4.2.2. The New Spirit of Capitalism Embodied 4.2.3. A Different Form of Political Awareness Conclusion