Publications

2015
Lamont, Michèle, Sabrina Pendergrass, and Mark C. Pachucki. 2015. “Symbolic Boundaries”. Pp. 850-855 in International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, edited by James Wright. Oxford: Elsevier. PDF
2014
Lamont, Michèle, Charles Camic, and Neil Gross. 2014. “Looking back at "Social knowledge in the making"”. Sociologica 8 (2). Publisher's Version PDF
Lamont, Michèle. 2014. “How Do University, Higher Education and Research Contribute toSocietal Well-Being?”. Pp. 8-17 in Higher Education in Societies: A Multi Scale Perspective. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. PDF
Lamont, Michèle. 2014. “Reflections inspired by Ethnic Boundary Making: Institutions, Power, Networks by Andreas Wimmer ”. Ethnic and Racial Studies 37 (5):814-819. PDF
Lamont, Michèle, Stefan Beljean, and Matthew Clair. 2014. “What is Missing? Cultural Processes and Causal Pathways to Inequality”. Socio-Economic Review 1-36. PDF
Lamont, Michèle, and Nicolas Duvoux. 2014. “How Neo-Liberalism has Transformed France's Symbolic Boundaries?”. French Politics, Culture and Society 32 (2):57-75.Abstract

This paper considers changes in the symbolic boundaries of French society under the influence of neo-liberalism. As compared to the early nineties, stronger boundaries toward the poor and Blacks are now being drawn while North-African immigrants and their offsprings continue to be largely perceived as outside the community of those who deserve recognition and protection. Moreover, while the social reproduction of upper-middle class privileges has largely remained unchanged, there is a blurring of the symbolic boundaries separating the middle and working class as the latter has undergone strong individualization. Also, the youth is now bearing the brunt of France’s non-adaptation to changes in the economy and is increasingly marginalized. The result is a dramatic change in the overall contours of the French symbolic community, with a narrowed definition of cultural membership, and this, against a background of growing inequality, unemployment, and intolerance in a more open and deregulated labor market.

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Lamont, Michèle, and Ann Swidler. 2014. “Methodological Pluralism and the Possibilities and Limits of Interviewing”. Qualitative Sociology 37 (2):153-171.Abstract

Against the background of recent methodological debates pitting ethnography against interviewing, this paper offers a defense of the latter and argues for methodological pluralism and pragmatism and against methodological tribalism. Drawing on our own work and on other sources, we discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of interviewing, especially for work in the sociology of culture. We argue that concern over whether attitudes correspond to behavior is a misguided focus of the recent literature, and offer that we should instead consider what interviewing and other data gathering techniques are best suited for. In our own work, we suggest, we have used somewhat unusual interviewing techniques not to explore individuals’ characteristics, but to reveal how institutional systems and the construction of social categories, boundaries, and status hierarchies organize social experience. We also point to new methodological challenges ahead, particularly concerning the incorporation of historical and institutional dimensions into interview-based studies. We finally describe fruitful directions for future research, which may result in methodological advances while bringing together the strengths of various data collection techniques.

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2013
Kjellberg, Hans, et al. 2013. “Valuation Studies? Our Collective Two Cents”. Valuation Studies 1 (1):11-30. PDF
Lamont, Michèle. 2013. “Revisiting How Professors Think across National and Occupational Contexts”. Papers : revista de sociologia 98 (3):587-591. PDF
Hall, Peter A., and Michèle Lamont. 2013. “Culture and Health”. Pp. 532-550 in Cultural Sociology: An Introductory Reader, edited by Matt Wray. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. PDF
Lamont, Michèle. 2013. “Forward”. Pp. ix-xi in Cultural Sociology: An Introductory Reader. New York : W. W. Norton & Company. PDF
Hall, Peter A., and Michèle Lamont. 2013. “Why Social Relations Matter for Politics and Successful Societies”. Annual Review of Political Science 16:1-23. PDF
Lamont, Michèle, Jessica S. Welburn, and Crystal M. Fleming. 2013. “Responses to Discrimination and Social Resilience Under Neoliberalism: The United States Compared”. Pp. 129-157 in Social Resilience in the Neoliberal Age, edited by Peter A. Hall and Michèle Lamont. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Abstract
See PDF
PDF French PDF
Hall, Peter A., and Michèle Lamont. 2013. “Introduction”. Pp. 1-34 in Social Resilience In The Neoliberal Era, edited by Peter A. Hall and Michèle Lamont. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. PDF

French Translation: “Introduction,” Revue des politiques sociales et familiales. Forthcoming. Paris, France: CNAF

Social Resilience In The Neoliberal Era
Hall, Peter A, and Michèle Lamont. 2013. Social Resilience In The Neoliberal Era. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.
2012
Lamont, Michèle, et al. 2012. Report of the SSHRC International Expert Panel for Imagining Canada’s Future. Toronto : Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. PDF
Lamont, Michèle, Jessica S Welburn, and Crystal M Fleming. 2012. “Special Feature: Varieties of Responses to Stigmatization: Macro, Meso, and Micro Dimensions”. Du Bois Review 941-200.
Lamont, Michèle. 2012. “In This Election Season: A Plea for a Cultural Sociology that Matters”. Culture Newsletter: American Sociological Association Section on the Sociology of Culture 25 (3):6, 14-15. PDF
Lamont, Michèle. 2012. “Review of "Political Epistemics: The Secret Police, the Opposition, and the End of East German Socialism" by Andreas Glaeser”. American Journal of Sociology 118 (1):258-260. PDF
Lamont, Michèle, Nissim Mizrachi, Michèle Lamont, and Nissim Mizrachi. 2012. “Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things: Responses to Stigmatization in Comparative”. Pp. 1-17 in Responses to Stigmatization in Comparative Perspective. New York: Routledge. PDF

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