The French Review

It is with much interest that readers may approach a sociological study that specifically focuses on children of Maghrebin immigrants who have achieved upward mobility vis-à-vis their parents, reaching the middle class—a welcome change from many concentrating on the delinquency and failures plaguing the lower classes. The fact that the scholar admits her early interest in the French language that she studied in secondary school, and "became very curious about visiting France and getting an opportunity to speak French with French people living in France" (ix) may even heighten their positive mindset. However, it will not take long to discover the built-in bias and self-fulfilling conclusions. A conversation with a respondent leads the author to state that this second generation suffers from "differential treatment and exclusion [...] based on racial and ethnic status [...] because they are nonwhite" (3). She intently seeks to prove the inefficacy of "France's Republican model, which purports to downplay distinctions based on identity among citizens" (4), siding with researchers who claim that cultural attachments associated with being North African are"oppositional to being French. There is only one way to be French" (24). Although many respondents, like Mohamed, believe that their dual Maghrebin and French identities and cultures "are more of a positive thing [...]. It has added to the richness of my life" (41), Beaman refutes findings of social scientists who establish that the success of this middle-class second generation is evidence that "race and ethnic origin are insignificant" (48). Sweeping generalizations are continually hammered to demonstrate that "white supremacy structures who is French" (18); that "though they have made it on a socioeconomic level, middle-class children of Maghrebin origin immigrants are not [End Page 244] accepted by others" (55); that "from an early age the North African second generation is denied cultural citizenship because they are of Maghrebin origin" (97); thus, they cannot escape marginalization "because they are non-white" (97). Learned readers will question the validity of assertions resulting from a "homogeneous" (107) sample of 45 respondents, 24 men and 21 women, half of whom are connected to each other as friends or acquaintances (107), during open-ended conversations—there is no mention of structure or questionnaire. Beaman's gratifying experiences in le Petit Nanterre, "an impoverished neighborhood" (107–08), may have colored her conclusions. If readers reach the Appendix (105–11), they will discover that Beaman's calls to more than a hundred organizations and associations, and on Internet forums and websites, were not very productive. In order to reach this small number of willing participants, she had to resort to "snowball sampling" (106), which consists of asking a respondent to recommend others. She attributes the refusal of the "many people [who] said no" (106) to "French Republican ideology [that] makes the discussion of race and ethnicity [...] sensitive or taboo" (106), without serious investigation of their reasons and/or the significance they assigned to her project. While the author believes that her findings "have implications for second-generation minority populations in other contexts" (107), many may not agree.