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.

The dignity of working men : morality and the boundaries of race, class, and immigration

Abstract: Introduction: Making Sense of Their Worlds The Questions The People The Research I. American Workers 1. The World in Moral Order "Disciplined Selves": Survival, Work Ethic, and Responsibility Providing for and Protecting the Family Straightforwardness and Personal Integrity Salvation from Pollution: Religion and Traditional Morality Caring Selves: Black Conceptions of Solidarity and Altruism The Policing of Moral Boundaries 2. Euphemized Racism: Moral qua Racial Boundaries How Morality Defines Racism Whites on Blacks Blacks on Whites Immigration The Policing of Racial Boundaries 3. Assessing"People Above" and"People Below" Morality and Class Relations "People Above" "People Below" The Policing of Class Boundaries II. The United States Compared 4. Workers Compared Profile of French Workers Profile of North African Immigrants Working Class Morality The Policing of Moral Boundaries Compared 5. Racism Compared French Workers on Muslims French Workers' Antiracism: Egalitarianism and Solidarity North African Responses The Policing of Racial Boundaries Compared 6. Class Boundaries Compared Class Boundaries in a Dying Class Struggle Workers on"People Above" Solidarity a la francaise: Against"Exclusion" The Policing of Class Boundaries Compared Conclusion: Toward a New Agenda Appendix A: Methods and Analysis Appendix B: The Context of the Interview: Economic Insecurity, Globalization, and Places Appendix C: Interviewees Notes References Index

How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment

Abstract: * Contents * Opening the Black Box of Peer Review * How Panels Work * On Disciplinary Cultures * Pragmatic Fairness: Customary Rules of Deliberation * Recognizing Various Kinds of Excellence * Considering Interdisciplinarity and Diversity * Implications in the United States and Abroad * Appendix: Methods and Data Analysis * Notes * References * Acknowledgments * Index

Rethinking Comparative Cultural Sociology: Repertoires of Evaluation in France and the United States

Abstract: Книга представляет собой итог совместного франко-американского сравнительного исследования, осуществлявшегося рабочей группой под руководством Мишель Ламон (Prinston University) и Лорана Тевено (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris) в 1994-1999 гг. Исследование построено на сравнении сходных по формальной структуре ситуаций взаимодействия социальных акторов в двух странах. Выбирались различные ситуации из культурной, политической и экономической сферы, в которых возникал конфликт из-за расхождения точек зрения на то, что следует считать правильной или неправильной манерой действия (спорные художественные и культурные акции и произведения, объективность СМИ, конфликт между промышленными и природоохранными проектами, расизм, сексуальные домогательства и т.д.). Сравнивались репертуары оценок, использовавшиеся акторами в двух странах, их удельный вес в той и другой стране, характер столкновений и способы достижения компромиссов. Таким образом, исследователям удалось сравнить, каким образом в двух странах способы вынесения оценок акторами, основанные на повседневной практической компетентности, укорененной в соответствующих локальных культурных практиках, расширяются до уровня публичного и влияют на позиции акторов и их действия при решении публичных проблем.

Cultivating differences : symbolic boundaries and the making of inequality

Abstract: How are boundaries created between groups in society? And what do these boundaries have to do with social inequality? In this pioneering collection of original essays, a group of leading scholars helps set the agenda for the sociology of culture by exploring the factors that push us to segregate and integrate and the institutional arrangements that shape classification systems. Each examines the power of culture to shape our everyday lives as clearly as does economics, and studies the dimensions along which boundaries are frequently drawn. The essays cover four topic areas: the institutionalization of cultural categories, from morality to popular culture; the exclusionary effects of high culture, from musical tastes to the role of art museums; the role of ethnicity and gender in shaping symbolic boundaries; and the role of democracy in creating inclusion and exclusion. The contributors are Jeffrey Alexander, Nicola Beisel, Randall Collins, Diana Crane, Paul DiMaggio, Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Joseph Gusfield, John R. Hall, David Halle, Richard A. Peterson, Albert Simkus, Alan Wolfe, and Vera Zolberg.

Reconsidering Culture and Poverty

Abstract: Culture is back on the poverty research agenda. Over the past decade, sociologists, demographers, and even economists have begun asking questions about the role of culture in many aspects of poverty and even explicitly explaining the behavior of the low-income population in reference to cultural factors. An example is Prudence Carter (2005), who, based on interviews with poor minority students, argues that whether poor children will work hard at school depends in part on their cultural beliefs about the differences between minorities and the majority. Annette Lareau (2003), after studying poor, working-class, and middleclass families, argues that poor children may do worse over their lifetimes in part because their parents are more committed to “natural growth” than “concerted cultivation” as their cultural model for child rearing. Mario Small (2004), based on fieldwork in a Boston housing complex, argues that poor people may be reluctant to participate in beneficial community activities in part because of how they culturally perceive their neighborhoods. David Harding (2007, 2010), using survey and qualitative interview data on adolescents, argues that the sexual behavior of poor teenagers depends in part on the extent of cultural heterogeneity in their neighborhoods. Economists George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton (2002), relying on the work of other scholars, argue that whether students invest in schooling depends in part on their cultural identity, wherein payoffs will differ among “jocks,” “nerds,” and “burnouts.” And William Julius Wilson, in his latest book (2009a), argues that culture helps explain how poor African Americans respond to the structural conditions they experience.

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