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"In social psychology, we work on how individuals construct their reality and on their perceptions of social objects. How do these constructs influence a person's interactions with others and affect how they situate themselves in the world? My initial interest was in alternative therapies and the matter of belief, in the ways of dismissing other peoples' beliefs as baseless. Using the theory of representations on which my work is based, it is possible to adopt a different perspective to the issues of rationality and irrationality by highlighting everything that individuals collectively construct and which is meaningful to them. Gradually, I adressed the issues of sexual minorities through same-sex parenting. Given that this was a new and controversial social object that people did not understand, I was interested in examining how it was socially constructed.

I love to learn! What I like about this job is that I am improving all the time. It is sometimes difficult to teach in front of 500 first-year students, it is a huge challenge to succeed in engaging them and in helping them make progress! But creating courses helps me to discover new things that often resonate with my research and sometimes even clarify it - especially at the master's level where the subjects explored often concern issues related to sexual and gendered minorities. Although I developed my feminine identity from the perspective of independence, I first had to accept my homosexual identity and it was only quite belatedly that I discovered feminism, and from a theoretical point of view. During a seminar, I was encouraged to reflect on how I has gradually heightened awareness of this identity and how this would impact my university activities. Today I'm fully comfortable with my feminist lifestyle and positioning."

Christèle Fraïsse,
Senior lecturer in Psychology, University of Western Brittany

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