Research Interests
Her first line of research is focused on the institutional and psychological antecedents of social class inequality in school and society.
Her PhD thesis aimed to experimentally uncover the structural barriers to educational equality (i.e., when and why teachers discriminate against lower social class students; 2013-2018; (Autin et al., 2015; 2019; Batruch et al., 2017; 2019a; 2019b).
In the last year of her PhD (2017), she obtained a Doc.Mobility SNSF grant to work on a new project investigating the effects of ideological beliefs about educational equality on the legitimation of social inequality at the University of Queensland (AUS). She then took a post-doctoral position at the sociology department at the University of Amsterdam (2018-2019) and continued working on both institutional (i.e., teacher discrimination; Batruch, Geven et al., 2022) and psychological (i.e., beliefs in school meritocracy; Batruch et al., 2022) processes accounting for social class inequality in schools and society.
She came back to the University of Lausanne in 2019 to work on a nation-wide large-scale longitudinal experiment (> 100 schools) on the effects of jigsaw puzzle classroom on performance and socio-emotional outcomes for French high-school students (N > 10,000; Mella et al., 2021). She specifically oversees a subproject on the socio-emotional and academic consequences of downward mobility (i.e., being a student who will likely have a lower educational diploma than their parents).
Her second line of research delves into the psychological consequences of social class inequality.
Since then, she also received a SNSF Spark grant to conduct a large-scale (N > 30,000) and theoretically comprehensive (42 effects) replication project to advance and refine the theoretical framework of psychological models of social class. The project became a registered report which received an “in-principle acceptance” in Nature Human Behaviour (Batruch, Sommet & Autin, 2022).
In 2024, she joined the LIVES Centre as a SNSF Ambizione researcher (2024-2028) to work on social class and intergoup relations.
Research Experience
2017-2018
2024-2028
SNSF Ambizione Lecturer
SNSF Ambizione Grant- Main Applicant
"The Social Class Intergroup Model: An Identity-Based Framework to Reduce Anti-immigration Attitudes"
2013-2018
University of Lausanne
PhD
Supervisor: Pr. Fabrizio Butera
"Reproduction of social class inequalities at school: experimental study of structural barriers to educational equality"
University of Queensland
Visiting Scholar
SNSF Doc Mobility Project - Main Applicant
In collaboration with Pr. Jolanda Jetten
"School meritocracy as a legitimizing tool of social class discrimination"
2018-2019
University of Amsterdam
Postdoctoral Researcher
Vici (NWO) Project -
Principal Investigator: Pr. Herman van de Werfhorst
"Between institutions and mechanisms: Education and Inequality in Comparative Perspective"
2019-Present
University of Lausanne
Postdoctoral Researcher (20%)
Principal Investigators: J.-M. Monteil, P. Bressoux, F. Butera, C. Darnon, O.Desrichard, P. Huguet, E. & N. Michinov, P. Pansu, I. Régner
Profan Project: "Large-scale experiment of the effects of jiggsaw puzzle classroom on French students' socio-emotional outcomes and numerical compentencies"
2019-Present
University of Lausanne
Junior Lecturer (non-tenure track; 80%)
SNSF Spark Grant- Main Applicant
In collaboration with Dr. Nicolas Sommet & Dr. Frédérique Autin
"Advancing Psychology of Social Class: A Large Scale Multi- Country Replication Project with Nationally Representative Samples"
University of Lausanne
Grants
Main applicant
2023
2019
2017
SNSF Ambizione -800,000 USD (2024-2028)
"The Social class intergroup model: an identity-based framework to reduce anti-immigration attitudes"
SNSF Spark -100,000 USD
"Advancing Psychology of Social Class: A Large Scale Multi- Country Replication Project with Nationally Representative Samples"
SNSF Doc Mobility - 50, 000 USD
"School meritocracy as a legitimizing tool of social class discrimination"
