Isabelle Clair

Isabelle Clair is a CNRS HDR research director at the Institute for Research and Studies on Society (Iris) of the EHESS (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales). Her academic work focuses on the intersection of sociology, gender studies, and youth development within French society.

Clair's research interests center on teenage relationships, gender expectations, and sexuality among French adolescents. Her work examines how young people navigate early love experiences across diverse socioeconomic contexts in France, including social housing projects, Parisian upscale neighborhoods, and rural areas. She employs an embodied, observational approach to understand how gender norms persist despite social changes like same-sex marriage legalization and the #MeToo movement.

Her recent publication Serious Things: An Investigation into Teenage Love (2023) represents twenty years of fieldwork examining how French youth negotiate romantic and sexual expectations. The research reveals that traditional gender expectations continue to shape adolescent experiences, with girls expected to show reserve and boys expected to demonstrate power, even as societal norms evolve.

Clair is actively engaged in academic discourse, with recent presentations scheduled at institutions like Nantes University. Her work contributes significantly to understanding how socioeconomic factors intersect with gender norms in adolescent development across contemporary French society.