DSOC 27A25 - Intersectionality Through the Lens of Upward Soc. Mobility:Gender, Race and Belonging in West Europe

This course examines the upward social mobility of descendants of immigrants in Western Europe to understand how class, race, and gender intersect in shaping their trajectories. While many experience educational or professional success, they also encounter persistent symbolic boundaries and forms of racialization and gendered expectations. Using these trajectories as an entry point, the course introduces intersectionality as both a theoretical and methodological framework for analyzing multiple systems of domination simulaneously. Students will engage with the genealogy of this concept - from “doing gender” to Black feminist critiques - as well as its contemporary uses and tensions. The course also draws on sociological approaches to integration and segmented assimilation to question the limits of these categories and explore national variations, particularly between France and Germany. By connecting social experiences, institutional contexts, and power relations, the course provides analytical tools to grasp the complexity of mobility and inequality in post-migrant Europe.

The upward social mobility of descendants of immigrants in Western Europe offers a privileged entry point for analyzing how the social relations of class, race, and gender intersect and transform one another. Despite trajectories marked by educational or professional success, these individuals often confront persistent symbolic boundaries, gendered expectations, and forms of racialization that hinder the full recognition of their mobility. This course takes these trajectories as an entry point to interrogate the social dynamics that shape the experiences of those who “succeed” in contexts where hierarchies remain deeply structured.

Building on this empirical foundation, the course introduces intersectionality as both a conceptual framework and an analytical method. Students will explore how social positions are co-constructed through interactions between gender, race, class, and various forms of belonging and identification. Through key texts - from “doing gender” to Black feminist critiques of the law and contemporary debates - students will learn to mobilize intersectionality rigorously and reflexively.

The course also situates these experiences within broader debates in migration studies. We will examine concepts such as integration, segmented assimilation, symbolic boundaries, and in/visibility in postcolonial Europe, with a focus on France and Germany. Students will be encouraged to reflect on the political and analytical implications of these categories, and on how institutions, family norms, and social expectations structure mobility opportunities.

Studying the mobility of descendants of immigrants also allows us to address key notions in migration studies, including integration, segmented assimilation, symbolic boundaries, and dynamics of (in)visibility in a Europe marked by its colonial past. The selected texts invite students to question the analytical and political implications of the concept of integration, to analyze how race is obscured or reconfigured across national contexts (France vs. Germany), and to understand how gender norms, family expectations, institutional logics, and social practices shape opportunities for success.

By combining theoretical perspectives, empirical research, and comparative insights, the course aims to equip students with analytical tools to interpret complex social dynamics and to critically assess the production of inequality in contemporary European societies.

Learning Objectives

Understand intersectionality as theory and method

Analyze upward mobility cases with attention to race/gender/class

Critically assess concepts such as integration, assimilation, boundaries etc.

Develop an intersectional lens to analyze empirical materials and academic texts.

Class participation 15%

Active and thoughtful engagement in discussions is expected each week.

Group presentation (2 students per group) 45%

Presentations must critically engage with the required readings and connect them to the broader themes of the course.

Final in-class paper 40%

A written essay mobilizing course concepts to analyze an empirical case or a theoretical question.