Colombe SAILLARD, Class of 2021

>Can you tell us about your academic background?

After obtaining a scientific baccalaureate in Nantes, I entered the University of Rennes 1 to do a degree in mathematics with a parallel degree in philosophy. Having confirmed my interest in mathematics during the first year, I chose to join the University of Paris 6 (now Paris Sorbonne University) to complete my degree in mathematics. 

At the end of this degree, I entered the ENSAE (École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Economique), which seemed to me to be the ideal place to continue receiving a stimulating and demanding education in mathematics while re-engaging with humanities and social sciences disciplines such as economics and sociology.

Having greatly appreciated the sociology courses given at the ENSAE, I wanted to take the “Data Science and Social Sciences” track in my third year and join the Sociology Master's programme at the School of Research as part of the dual degree agreement between the ENSAE and Sciences Po.

The training provided by Sciences Po seemed to me to be a useful complement to the training I received at the ENSAE from the point of view of survey methods, themes and conceptual approaches. I was particularly interested in the sociology of science, an interest that was confirmed at Sciences Po when, in my second year, under the supervision of Jérôme Aust, I wrote a research paper on the creation of a museum space for the general public in a large Parisian research institute. This year I am continuing my studies with doctoral research, on a subject that is still related to mathematics but which I am examining more from a sociology of education perspective, under the supervision of Pierre-Michel Menger.

How did your interest in sociology begin?

My initial contact with sociology goes back to my year on the philosophy degree, where, in the context of a course on the epistemology of the humanities and social sciences that I appreciated very much, I was able to familiarise myself with the great founding authors of the discipline (Durkheim, Marx, Weber, etc.).

Afterwards, I didn’t have the opportunity to read or do sociology until I entered the ENSAE, where an introductory course in this discipline was given in the first year. I really liked the very empirical approach of this course, which allowed me to gain a very concrete idea of the type of results that a research practice in sociology could produce. So I started to read articles and books in sociology related to this course, and in my everyday life I also started to pay attention to the effects that the sociological approach, as an endeavour to objectify social realities via specific methods of inquiry, could or might have on a number of issues occupying the public debate.

At the end of my first year at the ENSAE, I did an internship at the Centre for Studies in Social Change (OSC) under Louis-André Vallet, which I enjoyed immensely, particularly in that it allowed me to put into practice the technical tools that I had already acquired, in order to produce knowledge on absolutely fascinating issues of intergenerational social mobility.

It seems to me that this internship constituted a second important moment in initiating my interest in sociology; beyond what this discipline seemed to me to bring on the theoretical and practical level, I learned to appreciate the daily work of the researcher in sociology, which seems to me to be particularly varied and stimulating.

What did your years of study at the Sciences Po School of Research (formerly the Doctoral School) bring you?

The main contributions of my studies at the School of Research are threefold. First of all, I found the training to be extremely comprehensive in terms of the survey methods it introduced us to; already being familiar with quantitative surveys due to my previous studies, I appreciated the discovery of qualitative survey methods such as biographical or organisational interviews, non-participant ethnographic observation and the analysis of written sources.

More generally, I have the impression that my time on this Master's programme has provided me with the keys to constructing a sociological process of asking questions and to building a research approach and a methodology of investigation that allow me to answer them. This aspect is, in my opinion, crucial in the practice of research in sociology, and it seems to me to be essential to try it (notably through the writing of the dissertation) before committing oneself to a doctorate.

Secondly, in this Master's degree I seem to have discovered a number of research themes in sociology that I would not have been spontaneously interested in, but which have enabled me to attain a better understanding of what constitutes current research, and to have some important references on a certain number of subjects.

Finally, the third contribution of this training is more concerned with the aspects of socialisation to research; it seems to me that by discussing with other students, our teachers and our dissertation supervisors, we have begun to get an idea of the issues and the main difficulties of the profession of researcher in sociology.

Which teacher or teaching has had the greatest impact on you?

One course that has had a huge impact on me is the Sociology of Public Action taught by Christine Musselin and Philippe Bézès. It was an extremely dense course, dealing with issues that I was not particularly sensitive to at the outset, but which both teachers made me see the interest in. In retrospect, this course seems to me to be very important in the context of our training insofar as aspects of public policy are likely to be found in most of the subjects on which we will choose to work in the future. I had the impression that I came away from this course having acquired a certain number of tools for analysing public action that I will be able to apply to various subjects, while also knowing how to contextualise them conceptually, referring in particular to the extremely extensive reading lists that were given to us in each class. We had the opportunity to put these tools into practice directly in the course validation exercise, which consisted of an analysis of a public policy of our choice or proposed by the teachers.

What memories do you have of your school, your class, your teachers?

Unfortunately, it seems to me that my experience at Sciences Po was not really what it should have been because of the COVID epidemic which forced us to follow the course via distance learning for more than a year. Nevertheless, there was a very supportive environment between most of the students during this period, without which it would have been difficult to keep going. I also remember the kindness of some teachers and members of the administrative staff, and more generally the impression of having been intellectually stimulated and humanly accompanied throughout my two years of Master’s study.

What is your current role?

I am now in my first year of doctoral studies at the Collège de France and the EHESS. I am working on educational and extracurricular trajectories in mathematics. The objective of my work is to describe and understand the mathematical pathways (in terms of performance, orientation and subjective experience) of French primary and secondary school students in and around school. One of the main issues of the work is to try to understand how social factors, and also the school context, allow us to account for failure and success in mathematics (as characterised by the school institution) and especially for how this is concentrated in different social spaces. I seek to answer these questions by mobilising both the quantitative exploitation of large national and international surveys, and fieldwork (observations and interviews).

Would you have any advice to give to a student who wants to go into the field in which you work today?

My initial experiences in the field of sociological research lead me to believe that it is above all important for students who wish to pursue this path to be confronted with the practice of sociological inquiry through internships or methodology courses. Indeed, it seems to me that beyond an interest in the discipline and the questions it allows us to ask, it is necessary to ensure that one enjoys doing the work that constitutes the daily life of a sociology researcher.

Learn more

• About Master’s in Sociology

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[ April 2022 ]