Missions

The Gendhi project aims to understand how social relations of domination interact to explain social inequalities in health, from early childhood to adulthood. The research is structured around two complementary questions: (i) How are (un)healthy bodies socially constructed? (ii) Do sick people's access to care and treatment by the healthcare system differ according to their social characteristics? The approach is resolutely multidisciplinary, combining sociology, demography, economics, and epidemiology, in close collaboration with clinical researchers. This project is led by Nathalie Bajos, sociologist-demographer, director of research at INSERM, Muriel Darmon, sociologist, director of research at CNRS, Pierre-Yves Geoffard, economist, director of research at CNRS, and Michelle Kelly-Irving, epidemiologist, director of research at INSERM.
The objective of this postdoctoral research is to examine social inequalities in health based on the linguistic interactions that take place in general medical practices. In a foundational approach to French sociology of social inequalities in health, such as that of Luc Boltanski, language plays a central role in the study of interactions between doctors and patients, but this dimension has been little explored. Similarly, the study of class and gender socialization has, until recently, paid little attention to language socialization and its effects. This study aims to fill these gaps and provide crucial insights into the role of language in the production or reproduction of social inequalities during the central and often initial stage of care that is the general medical consultation. The research will build bridges between the different areas covered by the Gendhi project: socialization of health in families and the incorporation of relationships with the body and the medical institution, social variations in motor and language skills in childhood, social variations in the perception and expression of symptoms, access to care and the varying credibility of patients' statements, and social inequalities in care that play out in consultations and interactions between doctors and patients. Like other Gendhi research, the study will place particular emphasis on issues of social inequalities in health, the intersection of class, gender, and other relationships of domination (notably here, ethnoracial dimensions, with expected consideration of the effects of migration trajectories, languages spoken, and culturalist representations and attributions). The research will be qualitative and focused on interactions between doctors and patients in general practice. The number and duration of observations and the range of consultations surveyed will be discussed with the postdoctoral supervisor. The observations may be supplemented by interviews with general practitioners and patients. The research will also need to be closely aligned with other qualitative and quantitative research conducted within the Gendhi project. This sociological research will also need to be aligned with the other disciplines involved in the project (particularly economics and epidemiology).

Activités

- Participation in the scientific aspects of the Gendhi project.
- Collection of qualitative data through observation of healthcare interactions in general medical practices (and possibly through interviews). An observation method enabling the systematic collection of comments will be proposed. Observations will be transcribed and any interviews will be transcribed in full and anonymized. At the end of the postdoctoral fellowship, any fully transcribed interviews will be added to the Gendhi materials, along with an observation report of a size and nature to be specified.
- Writing scientific articles.
- Presenting work and participating in Gendhi working groups and seminars.
This list is neither exhaustive nor restrictive.
- 20% of working time may be devoted to promoting previous work, particularly theses.

Compétences

Essential criteria:
• PhD in sociology, defended or with a defense date set before the start of the postdoctoral fellowship (the postdoctoral fellowship will begin at least one month after the thesis defense date).
• Experience and mastery of the sociological approach and qualitative methods.
• Experience and mastery of the sociology of language and linguistic interactions, knowledge of related disciplines (sociolinguistics, psychology, etc.).
• Autonomy.
Skills that are useful but not essential:
• Previous experience in health-related field research.
• Experience with quantitative methods.

Contexte de travail

The recruitment is associated with the Gender and Health Inequalities (Gendhi) research project. This project has received funding from the European Research Council, via the “ERC-Synergy-2019” call, for a period of seven years. The successful candidate will become a postdoctoral researcher in the CESSP laboratory (UMR 8209 / CNRS, EHESS, Paris 1) and will be based at the CESSP and Gendhi project premises on the Condorcet campus.