VALLOT Pauline

{tab=Research topics}

• Sociology of immigration
• Sociology of social stratification
• Articulation of gender, class and race relations
• Sociology of education and higher education (hierarchy and profitability of degrees; educational aspirations)
• Quantitative and qualitative methods in social sciences

{tab=Formation & Thesis}

Thesis in sociology :

Pauline VALLOT defended her thesis on September 9, 2020, in Franco-German cotutelle (University of Paris I / University of Göttingen). The jury was composed of : Cris BEAUCHEMIN, Research Director and HDR at INED (president); Ioana CÎRSTOCEA, CNRS Research Fellow and HDR at CESSP (examiner); Silke HANS, Professor of Sociology at the University of Göttingen (co-director); Catherine MARRY, CNRS Research Director and HDR at the Maurice Halbwachs Center (reporter); Camille PEUGNY, Professor of Sociology at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (reporter); Anne-Catherine WAGNER, Professor of Sociology at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne (co-director).

Directors : Silke HANS and Anne-Catherine WAGNER

Title of the thesis : Une immigration déqualifiée. Diplômé·es d'études longues à la périphérie des professions supérieures françaises et allemandes.

Summary :

This sociology thesis is a contribution to the analysis of professional dequalification on a transnational scale. It proposes to renew the analysis of contemporary migrations and the international hierarchies that underlie them through the case of migrants with higher education degrees. More specifically, it focuses on people who immigrated to France or Germany as adults and who reside in these countries at the end of the 2000s. This rapidly expanding population is exposed to legal and symbolic exclusion mechanisms that may counterbalance the advantages of high educational resources and international skills. Based on this ambivalence, the research is based on an empirical device that combines statistical surveys ({Enquête Emploi}, {Trajectoires et Origines} and {Mikrozensus}) and ethnographic interviews with immigrant doctors and engineers.

In the first part, the notion of 'choice' in migration orientation is deconstructed. We first analyse how expert and political discourse has contributed to the dissemination of the theoretical scheme of a global market of 'talents' that would be oriented according to the 'attractiveness' of countries. We then identify two major and largely compartmentalised circulation spaces: from Africa to France on the one hand, and from Eastern Europe to Germany on the other. The linguistic and educational influence of France on formerly colonised countries is the basis of the first system, while the long-standing economic exchanges between Germany and the Eastern European countries, recently facilitated by the European Union, serve as the basis for the second.

In the second part, we focus on work and employment in the country of arrival. Due to barriers in accessing higher professions, the situation of immigrants is often one of status inconsistency with the social stratification of other higher education graduates. Moreover, they often experience a professional downgrading as a result of migration. The phenomenon of dequalification is explained by mechanisms of exclusion and stigmatisation according to nationality, country of education, language practices or physical appearance. It is expressed differently in France and Germany and contributes to the recomposition of gender relations. Thus, the opposition between central and peripheral countries is objectified and specified through the analysis of two contemporary migratory systems with contrasting logics.

University formation :

• 2014-2020 : PhD in sociology, Franco-German cotutelle (University of Paris 1 / University of Göttingen)
• 2013-2014: 10-month Research Internship at the University of Bremen, Germany
• 2012-2013 : Agrégation of Economic and Social Sciences / Master 2 Training for Higher Education, ENS Paris/ENS Paris-Saclay
• 2011-2012: Master 2 SocStat "Sociology and Statistics" (EHESS/ENSAE/ENS Paris)
• 2010-2011: Master 1 in Sociology at the University of Warwick, UK (Erasmus Program)
• 2009-2014 : ENS Cachan (now ENS Paris-Saclay)
• 2007-2009 : Preparatory Class B/L " Letters and Social Sciences ".

{tab=Publications}

[cv-hal id=pauline-vallot type=authIdHal_s]

{tab=Communication}

Colloquia and congresses :

• « Partir pour la France ou pour l’Allemagne ? L’orientation migratoire des diplômé·es du supérieur entre goût de liberté et goût de nécessité », {{Congress of the French Sociology Association}}, RT "Migrations, otherness et internationalisation", 27-30 August 2019, in Aix-en-Provence.
• « L’établissement d’un palmarès de la "course aux talents" par l’OCDE », {{Congress of the French Sociology Association}}, RT "Sociologie des intellectuel-les et de l'expertise", 27-30 August 2019, in Aix-en-Provence.
• « La migration comme renversement des rapports de pouvoir linguistiques. Pertes et profits des ingénieur·es aéronautiques en mobilité internationale », {{ENS, Colloquium "Mobilités sociales et migrations internationales"}}, 13-14 June 2019, in Paris.
• « Sociologie comparée des migrations qualifiées vers la France et l’Allemagne : les apports d’un éclairage historique sur la construction des catégories statistiques », {{Center Marc Bloch, Study Day "Beyond disciplinary borders"}}, 10-11 July 2018, in Berlin.
• « Incarner des chiffres ? La statistique publique comme support à la constitution d’un corpus d’entretiens qualitatifs », {{Congress of the French Sociology Association}}, RT 20 "Methods", 3-6 July 2017, in Amiens.
• « La mobilité sociale dans la migration. Une analyse des reclassements socioprofessionnels chez les immigré·e·s diplômé·e·s du supérieur », {{University Centre for Demography and Population Studies, Colloquium "Spatial Mobilities and Migrations"}}, 19 May 2016, in Villeneuve d'Ascq.
• « What is an academic degree worth beyond the country where it was institutionalized? A quantitative analysis of occupational positions in France among people educated abroad », {{Trinity College, Colloque « Power, Cosmopolitanism, and the Transformation of European Elites »}}, 8-9 juin 2015, in Dublin.

Workshops, study days and seminars (selection) :

• « La migration comme reconfiguration des rapports de genre. Des femmes diplômées du supérieur en retrait de l’emploi suite à leur arrivée en France ou en Allemagne », {{Seminar of the unit Migrations internationales et minorités}}, Institut national d'études démographiques, 6 October 2020, in Aubervilliers.
• « Des chiffres au service de la construction d’un problème public international : la "course aux talents" », {{Seminar of the "Going global" axis of the CESSP (Paris 1)}},15 March 2018, in Paris.
• (with the Collectif Feedback) « Et les étudiant·e·s, ils/elles en pensent quoi du cours de sociologie ? », {{Seminar for doctoral students of the CESSP}}, 23 November 2018, in Paris.
• « Le privilège d’une éducation française. Inégalités sociales entre diplômés africains immigrés en France », {{Laboratory of Quantitative Sociology (CREST), Doctoral Day}}, 21 June 2017, in Malakoff.
• « Immigrants at the top? Socioeconomic Position of the Highly Skilled Immigrants in France and Germany », {{University of Bremen, Migration Working Group}}, 4 May 2017, in Bremen, Germany.
• « Quel recrutement à l'étranger en haut de l'espace social ? Position des immigrés de scolarité étrangère au sein des professions diplômées en France et en Allemagne», {{University of Paris 5, Population and Development Center, Mobélites Seminar}}, 23 March 2017, in Paris.
• « Situer les titulaires d'un diplôme étranger dans l'espace socioprofessionnel français. Exemple d'utilisation de la nomenclature détaillée des PCS », {{ENS Paris-Saclay, Seminar Reflexive Quantitativism}}, 13 May 2016, in Cachan.
• « Die berufliche Position der eingewanderten Akademiker in Frankreich und Deutschland. Eine deskriptive Analyse », {{Doctoral Day of the {Institut für Soziologie}}, 17 June 2016, in Göttingen, Germany.

{tab=Scientific animation and collective research}

• Member of the organising committee of the conference "Des migrations internationales privilégiées?", 15-16 June 2021, Convergences Migrations Institute, Aubervilliers
• 2015-2019: Coordination of the Collective "Feedback", doctoral research workshop on the teaching of sociology at the University

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