Author
Patrick Simon
Other affiliations: University of Paris
Bio: Patrick Simon is an academic researcher from Institut national d'études démographiques. The author has contributed to research in topics: Ethnic group & Population. The author has an hindex of 25, co-authored 113 publications receiving 2045 citations. Previous affiliations of Patrick Simon include University of Paris.
Topics: Ethnic group, Population, Immigration, Racism, Cultural diversity
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
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TL;DR: The second generation question as discussed by the authors has been a hot topic in the last few years, with growing concern about the future of the offspring of immigrants in France, which has led to the rise of a second-generation question.
Abstract: The growing concern about the future of the offspring of immigrants in France has prompted the rise of a “second generation question.” Access of “new second generations” {i.e., those born from the ...
173 citations
TL;DR: A researcher or a journalist trying to compare the situation of ethnic and racial minorities in the United States and in France immediately confronts a crippling obstacle: the concept of "ethnic and racial minority" as such is not used in France.
Abstract: A researcher or a journalist trying to compare the situation of ethnic and racial minorities in the United States and in France immediately confronts a crippling obstacle. The concept of ‘ethnic and racial minority’ as such is not used in France. This is not simply a matter of vocabulary –something the French typically like to argue about; the problem rather lies in the very incomparability of populations that one is talking about. Many of the categories that do exist in political discourse and public debate can of course be found in statistics. But there are no data describing the situation of minorities in France that could be compared with those produced in the United States. This state of affairs in French statistics – gathering has been the subject of major criticism for some 20 years now; it has gotten to the point that it has triggered a controversy of rare violence between those that would like to see statistics take into account the diversity of the population and those who denounce the danger that such statistics might pose of ethnicizing or racializing society. The media focus on the contentiousness of this debate has been such as to sometimes lose sight of the very existence of discrimination and the flaws of the Republican model that are at the root of the controversy in the first place.
161 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a historical perspective on the way knowledge has been produced in this field is presented, highlighting the "doxa" of the French integration model in social sciences, elaborating on the controversy over the production and use of ethnic categories in French social sciences.
Abstract: Migration studies have long been characterized as an illegitimate field of research in the French social sciences. This results from the strong influence of the so-called ‘republican’ ideology on social sciences, the constant politicization of the subject in the public arena, the maintenance of a number of taboos revolving around the colonial experience, and a history of the concepts (race, ethnicity, minority) that makes their potential use in scientific analysis controversial. This difficulty of reflecting upon the ethnic fact or racial relations contributed to the implementation of a normative framework, which until recently gave priority to the analysis of integration, leaving the content of ‘racial and ethnic studies' little explored in France. This article offers a historical perspective on the way knowledge has been produced in this field. It highlights the ‘doxa’ of the French integration model in social sciences, elaborating on the controversy over the production and use of ethnic categories in s...
123 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1996
115 citations
TL;DR: A review of the heterogeneity of methodologies used for converting ethnicity into statistics and their limitations for any potential standardization can be found in this paper, where the authors identify epistemological and methodological dilemmas.
Abstract: Statistics on ethnicity, if not on ‘race’, are common in a large number of countries around the world, but not in the western part of Europe. This divergence can be explained by legal prohibitions attached to data protection provisions and by a political reluctance to recognize and emphasize ethnic diversity in official statistics. Following different traditions of political framing, northern, central and eastern European countries have implemented different ways of collecting ‘ethnic statistics’. This article provides a review of the heterogeneity of methodologies used for converting ethnicity into statistics and discusses their limitations for any potential standardization. As part of the enforcement of anti-discrimination policies, European human rights institutions are urging a reconsideration of the choice of ‘colour-blind’ statistics. Counting or not counting by ethnicity raises epistemological and methodological dilemmas which this article attempts to identify.
114 citations
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TL;DR: The institution of Citizenship in France and Germany is discussed in this article, where Citizenship as Social Closure is defined as social closure and Citizenship as Community of Descent as community of origin.
Abstract: Preface Introduction: Traditions of Nationhood in France and Germany I. The Institution of Citizenship 1. Citizenship as Social Closure 2. The French Revolution and the Invention of National Citizenship 3. State, State-System, and Citizenship in Germany II. Defining The Citizenry: The Bounds of Belonging 4. Citizenship and Naturalization in France and Germany 5. Migrants into Citizens: The Crystallization of Jus Soli in Late-Nineteenth-Century France 6. The Citizenry as Community of Descent: The Nationalization of Citizenship in Wilhelmine Germany 7. \"Etre Francais, Cela se Merite\": Immigration and the Politics of Citizenship in France in the 1980s 8. Continuities in the German Politics of Citizenship Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index
2,803 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a comparison of second-generation Mexicans in the U.S., North Africans in France, and Turks in Germany is made, and the authors argue that the concepts associated with boundary processes offer the best opportunity to understand the ramifications of this distinction.
Abstract: In all immigration societies, a social distinction between immigrant and second generations, on the one hand, and natives, on the other, is imposed by the ethnic majority and becomes a sociologically complex fault line. Building on a comparison of second-generation Mexicans in the U.S., North Africans in France, and Turks in Germany, this article argues that the concepts associated with boundary processes offer the best opportunity to understand the ramifications of this distinction. The difference between bright boundaries, which involve no ambiguity about membership, and blurred ones, which do, is hypothesized to be associated with the prospects and processes of assimilation and exclusion. The institutionalization of boundaries is examined in the key domains of citizenship, religion, language, and race. The analysis leads to the specific conclusion that blurred boundaries generally characterize the situation of Mexicans in the U.S., with race the great, albeit not well understood, exception, while bright boundaries characterize the European context for Muslim groups.
969 citations
TL;DR: Transgenic and knockout studies have provided important mechanistic insights into the development of choroidal neovascularization, the principal cause of vision loss in age-related macular degeneration, and this in turn has culminated in preclinical and clinical trials of directed molecular interventions.
932 citations
TL;DR: The failure to melt thesis was iconoclastic when the book was published in 1963 as mentioned in this paper, but it had become widely accepted already by the end of the decade and had become the conventional wisdom not only in the US and other classic countries of immigration such as Canada and Australia, but also in much of northern and western Europe.
Abstract: “The point about the melting pot,” wrote Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the preface to their influential Beyond the Melting Pot, “is that it did not happen.” This “failure to melt” thesis was iconoclastic when the book was published in 1963. But it had become widely accepted already by the end of the decade — well before the post-1965 revival of mass immigration began to transform the American urban landscape. By the 1980s, when the effects of the “new ‘new immigration’” had become unmistakable, earlier conceptions of assimilation seemed to many to have lost all relevance. When Glazer published We Are All Multiculturalists Now in 1997, he was writing as eminence grise, not as iconoclastic intellectual.1 Pluralistic understandings of persisting diversity, once a challenge to the conventional wisdom, had become the conventional wisdom, not only in the US and other classic countries of immigration such as Canada and Australia, but also in much of northern and western Europe.
849 citations
TL;DR: This article reviewed recent research in ten Western European countries on the educational and labor market outcomes of second-generation minorities and found that minorities from less-developed origins appear to be particularly disadvantaged in education, access to the labor market, and occupational attainment.
Abstract: This paper reviews recent research in ten Western European countries on the educational and labor market outcomes of second-generation minorities. Minorities from less-developed origins appear to be particularly disadvantaged in education, access to the labor market, and occupational attainment. Disadvantages are most evident with test scores early in the school career, but in some countries minorities have higher continuation rates beyond the compulsory leaving age than do majority peers with similar test scores. Entry into the labor market is a particular problem for most minorities, with substantial ethnic penalties with respect to employment in all ten countries. There is a more mixed picture for occupational attainment: In some countries, we find cumulative disadvantages, whereas in others the barriers are greatest on entry into the labor market. We review possible explanations for the differences both between minorities and between countries.
790 citations