Michèle Lamont

Bio: Michèle Lamont is an academic researcher from Harvard University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Sociology of culture & Racism. The author has an hindex of 49, co-authored 160 publications receiving 17307 citations. Previous affiliations of Michèle Lamont include Princeton University & University of Michigan.

Sur les frontières de la reconnaissance

Abstract: Faisant appel aux etudes recentes portant sur la reconnaissance et l’identite sociale, nous analysons les changements dans la categorisation de l’identite collective des groupes stigmatises en Israel, en Irlande du Nord, au Quebec et au Bresil. Alors que la litterature sur la reconnaissance tend a presumer une opposition nette entre « nous » et « eux », l’analyse de la litterature empirique demontre la complexification et la multiplication des categories d’identite. Dans les quatre cas nous avons observe le processus de reconnaissance, en explorant les transformations de la signification des frontieres internes et externes de l’identite collective pour ses membres ainsi que pour ceux qui lui sont exterieurs. Nous soutenons que la nature conditionnelle de la reconnaissance devrait conduire les chercheurs a considerer non seulement les composantes normatives du conflit ethnique mais aussi, en leur accordant une importance particuliere, le langage et la categorisation qui fondent ce type de debat.

Complementary rather than contradictory: diversity and excellence in peer review and admissions in American higher education

Abstract: Diversity is largely accepted as a positive value in American society. Nevertheless, policies to encourage diversity, e.g. affirmative action, language policies and legalising illegal immigrants, are still largely disputed, and often understood as having contradictory and largely negative consequences. The implementation of diversity is still seen as a threat to meritocracy, national cohesion, and democracy. This paper analyses how excellence and diversity are discussed in two academic decision-making processes: admission at two elite public universities and the distribution of competitive research fellowships. We argue that excellence and diversity are not alternative but additive considerations in the allocation of resources. The administrators and academics we studied factor diversity in as an additional consideration when decisions are to be made between applicants of roughly equal standing.

In a Different Voice. Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA (Harvard University Press) 1982.

Abstract: Introduction 1. Woman's Place in Man's Life Cycle 2. Images of Relationship 3. Concepts of Self and Morality 4. Crisis and Transition 5. Women's Rights and Women's Judgment 6. Visions of Maturity References Index of Study Participants General Index

The WEIRDest People in the World

Abstract: Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world's top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers - often implicitly - assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these "standard subjects" are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there is substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species - frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior - hence, there are no obvious a priori grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions of human nature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity. We close by proposing ways to structurally re-organize the behavioral sciences to best tackle these challenges.

The Complexity of Intersectionality

Abstract: Since critics first allegedthat feminism claimed tospeak universally for all women, feminist researchers havebeen acutely aware ofthe limitations of genderas a single analyticalcategory. In fact, feministsare perhaps alone in the academy in theextent to which theyhave embraced intersectionality – the relationshipsamong multiple dimensions andmodalities of social relations and subject formations – as itselfa central category ofanalysis. One could evensay that intersectionality isthe most important theoreticalcontribution that women’s studies,in conjunction with relatedfields, has made sofar.1