Conference | Changing Middle Classes: Comparative and Global Perspectives

Presented by the Weatherhead Research Cluster on Comparative Inequality and Inclusion

No registration required. Free and open to the public. Click here or see below to view the Day 1 agenda.

Contact:

Amy Stockton
astockton@wcfia.harvard.edu

Our cluster's goal is to gain a more fine-grained understanding of the many complex processes that feed both inequality and inclusion. We consider in particular how to reduce recognition gaps in advanced industrial societies.

Friday, September 21

9:00–9:15 Welcome
Michèle Lamont, Director, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies; Professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies, Departments of Sociology and African and African American Studies, Harvard University.

9:15–11:00 Session I: Middle Class Formation: State Capacity, Expertise, and Labor Markets in the Global South

Chair: Jacob Olupona, Faculty Associate; Chair, Weatherhead Research Cluster on Religion in Public Life in Africa and the African Diaspora. Professor of African Religious Traditions, Harvard Divinity School; Professor of African and African American Studies, Department of African and African American Studies, Harvard University.

“Fearing Such a Lady: University Expansion, Economic Precarity, and the Hypergamy Ideal in
Kampala, Uganda”
Margaret Frye, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, University of Michigan.

“Renegotiating the Boundaries of Middle Class: First-Generation Black College Graduates in Brazil and South Africa”
Graziella Moraes Silva, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva.

“Urban Kenya’s Diverse ‘Middle Class’: Middle-Income Milieus and Symbolic Boundaries in Nairobi”
Florian Stoll, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Development Sociology, Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies, Germany.

Discussant: Alejandro de la Fuente, Faculty Associate; Chair, Weatherhead Initiative on Afro-Latin American Studies. Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin-American History and Economics, Department of History; Director, Afro-Latin American Research Institute, Hutchins Center; Professor of African and African American Studies, Department of African and African American Studies, Harvard University.

11:00–11:15 Coffee Break (provided)

11:15–1:00 Session II: Spatial Segregation, Homophily, and Social and Symbolic Boundaries

Chair: Joscha Legewie, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Harvard University.

“Work in London, Love in Paris”
Patrick Le Galès, Research Professor, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; Center for European Studies and Comparative Politics, Sciences Po, Paris.
Christine Barwick, Postdoctoral Researcher, Sociology, Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin. 

“Elite Sociability, Segregated Inclusion, and Power Games in Delhi”
Jules Naudet, Research Fellow, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre d'Études de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris.

“Relocated Ethnicities: How Do National-Cultural Repertoires Shape the Ethnic Identities of Socially and Spatially Mobile Migrants? Evidence from Israeli Mizrahim Living in Germany, Israel, and the United States”
Avihu Shoshana, Senior Lecturer, Department of Counseling and Human Development; Department of Leadership and Policy in Education, Faculty of Education, University of Haifa.

Discussant: Diane Davis, Faculty Associate. Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism; Chair, Department of Urban Planning and Design, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University.

1:00–2:15 Lunch Break

2:15–4:00 Session III: Class Consolidation: Identity, Distinction, and Cultural Practices

Chair: Matthias Koenig, Visiting Scholar, Weatherhead Scholars Program. Professor, Department of Sociology, Göttingen University.

“Transnational Human Capital and Social Class: How German Upper-Middle-Class Parents Prepare Their Children for Globalization”
Jürgen Gerhards, Chair of Macrosociology, Institute for Sociology, Freie Universitat, Berlin.

“One or Two Type(s) of ‘Concerted Cultivation’? The Educational Practices of (Upper-) Middle-Class French Parents”
Agnès van Zanten, Senior Researcher, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Observatoire Sociologique du Changement, Sciences Po, Paris.

“Upper Middle Class Social Reproduction: Wealth, Schooling, and Residential Choice in Chile”
María Luisa Méndez, Director, School of Sociology, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile. 
Modesto Gayo, Professor, School of Sociology, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile.

Discussant: Natasha Warikoo, Faculty Associate. Associate Professor of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education.

4:00–4:30 Coffee Break (provided)

4:30–5:45 Keynote Address
“The Geopolitics of Inequality: The Remaking of Elites and Middle Classes”
Mike Savage, Martin White Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, London School of Economics.