Cédric Hugrée

Sociologist, Researcher at the CNRS

Areas of Research

• Social Classes
• Inequalities
• Students
• State
• Public Sector
• Ethnography and quantitative analysis

 

Current Research Projects

My research focuses on social classes and the role played by higher education in the transformation of working classes and the reproduction of social relations in France and Europe.

My dissertation looked at the changes in the schooling and educational and professional careers of education graduates from working-class backgrounds. These pathways are most often through the first years of university studies and mainly involve girls. They are not necessarily failures in the massified universities of the 2010s, but can on the contrary be analysed as honourable schooling leading to reasonable upward mobility. This research has recently been extended by a study of the emergence of a new system of school selection at the turn of the 2000s in France (with Tristan Poullaouec, 2022).

My research has also focused on ordinary categorisations of the social world (with Laure de Verdalle, 2019) in order to analyse the forms of representation of social space in France and their links with instituted and official categorisations.

Finally, several of my recent publications focus on social inequalities on a European scale. With Étienne Pénissat and Alexis Spire, I have mapped the classes and symbolic distances between national social groups in Europe (2020, 2022).

 

Publications

Books

Cédric Hugrée et Tristan Poullaouec, L’université qui vient. Un nouveau régime de sélection scolaire, Paris : Raisons d’agir, août 2022, 184 p.

Cédric Hugrée, Etienne Penissat and Alexis Spire, Social class in europe: new inequalities in the old world, translated by Rachel Gomme and Sanya Pelini, Brooklyn: Verso Books, April 2020, 224 p.

Cédric Hugrée, Étienne Penissat et Alexis Spire, Les classes sociales en Europe, Agone, coll. « L’ordre des choses », octobre 2017 - 264 p.

Philippe Alonzo and Cédric Hugrée, The Sociology of Working Class, Paris, Armand Colin, Coll. 128, 2010

Nathalie Beaupère, Lucile Chalumeau, Nicolas Gury, Cédric Hugrée, Early Dropout in Higher Education , La Documentation Française ; Observatoire national de la vie étudiante (OVE), Coll. Panorama des savoirs, 2007

 

Edition of books and special issues

Cédric Hugrée, Étienne Penissat, Alexis Spire et Johs Hjellbrekke (dirs.), Class Boundaries in Europe: The Bourdieusian Approach in Perspective, Abingdon, Oxon : Routledge, coll. « Routledge Advances in Sociology », novembre 2022 - 314 p.

Cédric Hugrée, Paul Lehner et Jean-Baptiste Paranthoën (dirs.), « Mobilités professionnelles : contextualisations et incidences », Genèses, no 122, Belin, avril 2021, 192 p.

Lorenzo Barrault-Stella, Philippe Bongrand, Cédric Hugrée and Yasmine Siblot (eds.), ‘Relationships to school as relationships to the state’, Politix, Issue 130, April 2020, 202 p.

Séverine Chauvel et Cédric Hugrée (dirs.), "Higher education: The art and ways to select", Sociologie, 10(2), July 2019 — p.173‑224 p.

 

Main Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals

• Cédric Hugrée, Paul Lehner, Jean-Baptiste Paranthoën, « Mobilités professionnelles : contextualisations et incidences », Genèses, 2021/1 (n° 122), pp. 3-8 - English Abstract

• Lorenzo Barrault-Stella, Philippe Bongrand, Cédric Hugrée et Yasmine Siblot, "Relationships to school as relationships to the state", Politix, 2020/2 (n° 130), p. 7-22 - English Abstract

• Lorenzo Barrault-Stella, Cédric Hugrée, "Control the school, instrumentalize the state? Relationships to school and public institutions among the upper classes", Politix, 2020/2 (n° 130), p. 103-135 - English Abstract

• Cédric Hugrée, Étienne Penissat, Alexis Spire, "Is There a European Working Class? Social Domination and National Relegations in Europe”, Social Sciences, Issue n°11, pp. 96-113 - Find it here

• Cédric Hugrée, Étienne Penissat, Alexis Spire, "Working conditions as a marker of inequalities between socio-professional groups in Europe", Revue européenne des sciences sociales, vol. 57-2, n° 2, 2019, pp. 163-190 - English Abstract

• Cédric Hugrée, Laure de Verdalle, « The Words to Say It (Or Not). Formulating Hierarchies and Social Differences », L’Année sociologique, n°69-2, 2019, pp. 471-502 - English Abstract

• Séverine Chauvel, Cédric Hugrée, Introduction au dossier « Higher Education: The art and ways to select. Introduction », Sociologie, n°2 Vol. 10, 2019, English Abstract

• Yaël Brinbaum, Cédric Hugrée, Tristan Poullaouec, "50% to the bachelor’s degree... but how? Young people from working class families at university in France ", Economics and statistics, n°499, 2018, pp. 81-106 - Full Text

• Cédric Hugrée, Étienne Penissat, Alexis Spire, « Social and national determinants of cultural inequalities in Europe - Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, vol. 219, no. 4, 2017, pp. 98-115 English Abstract

• Cédric Hugrée, "The Social Sciences and Social Mobility. The Stakes of a Statistical Imbalance in Relation to Intergenerational Social Mobility", Politix, n°114, 2016/2, p. 47-72- English Abstract
  Selected for "The worrying decline in social mobility", Cairn’s Dossier, In Volume 3, Issue 7, August 2019 - Full Text

• Cédric Hugrée, “Good” Students? How Does One Land a University Degree?”, Regards croisés sur l’économie, 2015, n°16, pp. 51-68 - English Abstract

• Cédric Hugrée, Étienne Penissat, Alexis Spire, "The Distinctive Features of Public Sector in Europe : A Comparative Study Based on the Social Morphology of Wage Earners", Comparative Sociology, n°14-2, 2015, pp. 252-273- Full Text

• Cédric Hugrée, Étienne Penissat, Alexis Spire, “Differences Between Public and Private Sectors Employees Following the Managerial Turn in European States”, Revue Française de Sociologie, 2015, 56-1, pp. 47-73 - Full Text

• Cédric Hugrée, Laure de Verdalle, "The Criticality of Status. “Civil Servants” and “Self-Employed” as Categorisations of the Social World", Sociologie du travail, 2015, 57-2, pp. 200-229 - English Abstract

• Sibylle Gollac, Cédric Hugrée, “Being 30 Years Old in Public Sector in 1982 and in 2002”, Revue Française d’administration publique, 2015, n°152, pp. 23-43 English Abstract

• Cédric Hugrée, “Towards New Uses of Competitive Examinations for Public Employment?” Travail et emploi, 2011, n° 127, - pp. 67-82 - English Abstract

• Cédric Hugrée, "Teaching or Nothing?" Academic Routes, Social Aspirations, and Employability of Graduates from the Lower Middle Class , Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, n°183, 2010 - pp. 72-85 - English Abstract

• Cédric Hugrée, “The Working Classes and University: a Bachelor Degree... Then What?”, Revue Française de Pédagogie, n°167, 2009 - pp. 47-58 - English Abstract

• Cédric Hugrée and Abigaïl Kern, “Observing Telephone Surveyors: The Paradoxes of the Rationalization of Statistical Production”, Genèses, n°72, 2008 - pp.102-118 - English Abstract

 

Others articles or special issues

• Cédric Hugrée, Tristan Poullaouec, « « Jamais la France et son système scolaire n’ont autant diplômé et pourtant jamais les savoirs n’ont été aussi inégalement transmis » », Diversité : revue d’actualité et de réflexion sur l’action éducative, n°202, volume 2, Mai 2023 - accessible ici

• Cédric Hugrée, Tristan Poullaouec, « Les ratés de l’enseignement supérieur », Sociétés contemporaines, vol. 127, n° 3, 2022, pp. 177-184 - accessible ici

• Cédric Hugrée, Tristan Poullaouec, "Parcoursup, ou le nouveau nom de la sélection", Le Monde Diplomatique, Octobre 2022 - article

• Viviane Albenga, Pauline Delage, Cédric Hugrée, Noé Le Blanc, Vanina Mozziconacci et Tristan Poullaouec (coord.), « En finir avec l’école (néo)conservatrice », Mouvements, no 107, septembre 2021, 172 p. - accessible ici
  • Recension du dossier sur Le Monde.fr

• Cédric Hugrée, « In Memoriam. Yves Dutercq (1956-2020) », Sociologie, 2020/4 (Vol. 11), p. 345-345 - accessible ici

• Cédric Hugrée, Étienne Penissat, Alexis Spire, « Workers Are on the Frontline of a Second Wave of COVID-19 », Jacobin, 06.13.2020 - article

• Cédric Hugrée, Étienne Penissat, Alexis Spire, « Les plombiers polonais et français, des frères ennemis ? Panorama des classes sociales en Europe », Mouvements, vol. 100, n° 4, 2019, p. 82-88 - résumé

• Simon Duteil, Cédric Hugrée, Etienne Penissat, Zélia Molinari, « Education dans le 93, ou la politique de la corde coupée », Libération, 15/04/2019 - article

• Cédric Hugrée, Étienne Penissat, Alexis Spire, « Des frontières de classes transnationales ? », Savoir/Agir, 2019/2 (N° 48), p. 53-63- résumé

• Cédric Hugrée, Étienne Penissat, Alexis Spire, « La France au miroir de l’Europe. Métamorphoses des classes populaires », Le Monde Diplomatique, Mai 2017 - article

 

Books Chapters

Reading

 

Presentations

 

Teaching

• Séminaire L’institution scolaire face aux rapports sociaux : classe, genre, migration et génération (UE429) EHESS, (24h), accessible aux étudiants et étudiantes des Master Genre (EHESS), Master Sociologie (EHESS), Master PDI (EHESS ENS), Master Quantifier (EHESS ENS).

• Séminaire Sociologie de l’éducation : renouvellements empiriques et théoriques, EHESS, (24h), accessible aux étudiants et étudiantes des Master Genre (EHESS), Master Sociologie (EHESS), Master PDI (EHESS ENS), Master Quantifier (EHESS ENS).

• Mobilités sociales (3h), Formation enseignants de SES, Académie de Limoges, Novembre 2020

• Avec Jérôme Deauvieau, Thomas Amossé, Julie Maurice, Etienne Pénissat, Louie Talbot et Laure de Verdalle, Catégoriser le monde social (36h), Atelier du DSS ENS Ulm, 2015-2019

• Mobilités sociales (4h), Préparation agrégation sciences sociales, ENS Lyon, 2018, 2019

 

 

Dissertation and Academic Distinction

Dissertation

• The Great Escape. Schooling and carrer paths of French university graduate students from a working-class background (1970-2010)
   Directed by : Stéphane Beaud (CMH-ETT/École Normale Supérieure)
   The goal of this thesis is to analyze the schooling and career paths of French university graduate students from a working-class background. The first part deals with the emergence, at the end of the 1960s, of the specific issue of studentship, which gradually focuses on their integration into the workplace. Only preoccupied with the immediately, highly profitable training courses, most observers appear to be particularly unaware of the career paths followed by a whole generation of students —
  the “children of school democratisation”, as Stéphane Beaud calls them. The aim of the second part is to confront this notion with statistical data concerning educational paths, as well as with an ethnographic survey of 22 students who have graduated from the Universities of Nantes and Le Mans from the early 2000’s onwards. That second part brings to light a “higher” social and educational fringe among that very generation of students: the group of those whose scholarships, objectively and subjectively, appear to be honourable. Based on this ethnographic survey, and on various longitudinal data regarding the question of integration into the workplace, the third part then proceeds to examine the experiences of these students in their first jobs. Thus appear the specific issues at stake for working-class students: that is, how to convert an honourable educational path into reasonable perspectives of upward social mobility. Finally, the French phrase “échappée belle” reveals its double layer of meanings: a beautiful breakaway, yet with the feeling of a narrow escape.

Academic Distinction

Laureate of the 2010 Price of the French Student Life Observatory -Website