[CSH Seminar] What Does My IITian Tag Actually Mean? The Relationship between Academic Titles and Job Positions (IIT) (O.Henry & M. Ferry)

[CSH Seminar] What Does My IITian Tag Actually Mean? The Relationship between Academic Titles and Job Positions (IIT) (O.Henry & M. Ferry)

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Event Details

The Centre de Sciences Humaines is pleased to invite you to the CSH Seminar

by

Odile Henry

(Director, Centre de Sciences Humaines; Professor, Paris 8 University)

&

Mathieu Ferry

(Researcher, French Institute of Pondicherry; Associate Professor, Université Versailles Saint-Quentin)

on

What Does My IITian Tag Actually Mean? The Relationship between Academic Titles and Job Positions

Discussant: TBA

On

Monday, 15 June 2026, from 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm IST

At

Centre de Sciences Humaines

IFI-CSH conference room (ground floor)

2, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Road, New Delhi – 110011

Register to attend at CSH Delhi

Register to attend online on Zoom

Abstract:

The liberalisation of the Indian economy since at least the 1990s has established the prevalence of the private sector as the primary recruiter of graduates from the high-knowledge sector, including the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). While the public sector provides pathways for the mobility of dominated castes through quotas at government universities and in public recruitment, reservation policies do not exist to access the private sector. Yet, still relatively few empirical studies have examined the role played by caste in private sector recruitment. Based on a long fieldwork conducted in one of the most famous and oldest IITs, our study seeks to objectivise the logics behind placement for new graduates. We examine the role of caste in shaping a differentiated valuation of degrees. In doing so, we explore the combined effects of caste and degree according to the characteristics of the companies at the time of recruitment.

 

Speaker: 

Odile Henry holds a doctorate in sociology from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris). She is currently a full professor of sociology at Paris 8 University (Political Science department), having previously taught as an assistant professor at Dauphine University (Paris). Affiliated to the ENGIND programme (funded by the French National Research Agency, ANR), she was seconded as a senior researcher to the CSH from 2014 (September) to 2017 (February). Her main publications (with Mathieu Ferry) focused on the processes of elimination and differentiation of students according to their caste and gender within the IIT and upon entry into the labour market. Since 2018, she has been a member of the ESPI project on the effects of the rapid expansion of private higher education on social inequalities. Funded by the French Development Agency (AFD), this programme focuses on 7 emerging or developing countries. Odile Henry is in charge of analysing the transformations of Indian higher education institutions.

Mathieu Ferry is a sociologist and currently a Researcher at the French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP). He is on leave from his Associate Professorship (Maître de conférences) at Université Versailles Saint-Quentin (UVSQ, a founding member of Université Paris-Saclay), where he is also a researcher at Printemps. He is also an Affiliated Researcher at CESAH (Centre d’Études Sud-Asiatiques et Himalayennes). His current research focuses on how caste and religion shape intergenerational class trajectories in India, amid growing economic inequality, educational expansion, and privatization. Methodologically, he employs a combination of exploratory statistical tools (geometric data analysis), statistical modeling, and in-depth interviewing. For quantitative data, he primarily uses statistical surveys, including large harmonized datasets (IPUMS and DHS) and administrative sources. He is also actively interested in utilizing web-harvested data for social sciences.

For more info contact:

co[dot]lefevre[at]csh-delhi[dot]com

david[dot]singh[at]csh-delhi[dot]com

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