Gender and the Intersectional Approach in French Social Science Journals in the 21st Century

CRIS SCIENTIFIC SEMINAR 2024 - 2025

Talk with Etienne Ollion (CNRS, Institut Polytechnique) and Julien Boelaert (CERAPS, Université de Lille)

When is a gender perspective used in French social science publications, and who does it? Is this approach being used more than in the past, and has it replaced other analytical frameworks, as is sometimes claimed? 

Because it is impossible to consult the entire academic output over a long period, speculation often prevails over empirical analysis. To contribute to these reflections, as well as to the history and sociology of the social sciences, this article uses tools derived from natural language processing—large language models (LLMs)—to identify invocations of gender in a vast corpus. 

Applied to scientific articles from nearly 120 French social science journals published since the beginning of the century, it offers several telling results. The use of a gender approach has undeniably progressed over the past twenty-five years, even if the starting point was often low and ultimately remains limited. Marked differences exist between disciplines, as do the forms of institutionalization of this approach. Moreover, this perspective is still overwhelmingly used by women. Finally, the intersectional approach is increasing slightly, while remaining very much in the minority, and without gender replacing class.

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