Everyday Racism and Discrimination in France and Britain: A Comparative Study of the Educational and Professional Experiences of Second Generation Graduate Women

This thesis investigates the work experiences of second generation, children of Muslim immigrants, in France and Britain. In particular, it focuses on how Pakistani and Algerian women negotiate their social and professional positions. The thesis takes a qualitative approach involving two interviews with twenty-four female participants (six Pakistanis and six Algerians in each country), all of whom are graduates. It takes an intersectional lens to illuminate how the factors of ethnicity, gender, religion, education, social class and nationality construct the women’s employment trajectories. By comparing the experiences of women from well-established groups – Pakistanis in the United Kingdom (UK) and Algerians in France – to those of recent minority ethnic groups – Algerians in the UK and Pakistanis in France – the thesis explores experiences of racism and discrimination in educational institutions, the labour market and society as a whole. Framed within this comparative perspective, I show how others’ fixation on (visible) ethnic and/or religious identities constructs a similar sense of exclusion for both French and British women. In particular, I illustrate how the women’s experience of othering, ‘materialised’ through everyday racism, produces a sense of non-belonging in society as a whole and ‘caps’ equality in the labour market. I argue that the second generation graduate women in this study experience social mobility and achieve economic inclusion through academic success and accessing highly skilled professional jobs. They do not, however, experience social inclusion and equality in either multicultural Britain or republican France. By ‘de-constructing’ the category ‘second generation’, the research reported here contributes to the understanding of the social and professional positions of second generation graduates and Muslim women in Western Europe.