France of the Little-Middles

Marie Cartier is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Nantes, Researcher at CENS (Nantes Sociology Center, CNRS-University of Nantes), and Junior Member of the Institut Universitaire de France since 2010. She uses ethnographic methods to study the working-class through the lenses of employment and living spaces.Isabelle Coutant is Researcher at CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research), based at IRIS (Interdisciplinary Research Institute on Social Issues). Her research concerns working-class relationships with institutions.Olivier Masclet is Associate Professor at Paris Descartes Sorbonne Paris Cite and a researcher at the Center for Research on Social Connections since 2006. His research focuses on the cultural dimensions of class differentiation today and contemporary working-class lifestyles.Yasmine Siblot is Professor of Sociology at the University of Paris 8, and is member of the research center CRESPPA-CSU (Urban Societies and Cultures (CNRS-University of Paris 8). Her research interests lie in social class and political sociology.

• Illustrations, Tables, and MapsAcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter 1. The "Good Old Days"Chapter 2. Children of the projects in quest of respectabilityChapter 3. Suburban YouthChapter 4. "They're very nice, but...": Encountering new foreign neighborsChapter 5. A vote of the white lower classes?AppendicesAppendix I: Interviews cited in the bookAppendix II: Documents and sourcesBibliographyIndex

"This splendid and nuanced volume provides long-needed corrections to images from literature, cinema, news, and social science that have reduced Parisian suburbs to a dystopian vision of crime-ridden towers and despairing immigrants... Given the rich, careful data, the complex analyses, and the sensitive evocations of families divided by place, decisions, and success, this book should stimulate vastly enriched, comparative examinations of metropolitan Paris in its global context. It is also a provocative read about class, place, education, aspiration, and anxiety for social scientists and citizens worldwide ...Essential." Choice