Alexandre Frenette
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Dean's Faculty Fellow in Sociology
Alexandre Frenette is an Assistant Professor of Sociology. He is a cultural sociologist who studies how people attempt to launch and sustain careers, often using cultural industries as his case study. Drawing on participant observation and interviews in the music industry, his first book, Blame the Intern (Princeton University Press), is about the challenges and the promise of internships as part of higher education. His work has appeared in journals such as Work and Occupations, Poetics, Social Psychology Quarterly, Research in the Sociology of Work, Cultural Trends, and The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society. His writings on artistic workers and the intern economy have won awards from the Society for the Study of Social Problems as well as the Labor and Employment Relations Association, and his research has been supported by three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Specializations
Work and Occupations; Arts and Culture; Economic Sociology; Social Inequality
Representative Publications
Frenette, A. (2026). Blame the intern: On (not) breaking into the creative economy. Princeton University Press.
Martin, N. D., Frenette, A, & Gualtieri, G. (2023). Campus connections for creative careers: Social capital, gender inequality, and artistic work. Poetics: Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media, and the Arts. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2023.101763.
Frenette, A., Gualtieri, G., & Robinson, M. (2021). Growing divides: Historical and emerging inequalities in arts internships. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University, Strategic National Arts Alumni Project.
Frenette, A. & Ocejo, R. E. (2019). Sustaining enchantment: How cultural workers manage precariousness and routine.Research in the Sociology of Work 32, 35-60.
Frenette, A. Martin, N. D., & Tepper, S. J. (2018). Oscillate wildly: The under-acknowledged prevalence, predictors, and outcomes of multi-disciplinary arts practice. Cultural Trends 27(5), 339-352.
Frenette, A. (2017). The rise of creative placemaking: Cross-sector collaboration as cultural policy in the US. Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society 47(5), 333-345.
Frenette, A. (2013). Making the intern economy: Role and career challenges of the music industry intern. Work and Occupations 40(4), 364-397.