This panel explores individual responses to racial discrimination. Does the experience of discrimination leads to civic and political engagement? Does discrimination create a feeling of “shared fate” (Dawson, 1994) fostering a political interpretation of the experience and potentially a trajectory of politicization and engagement? Does discrimination erode adhesion of racial minorities to the nation, as has been discussed in France (Simon et al. 2016), and does this impact civic and political consciousness and practices? Discrimination will be defined as a social practice based on an unequal treatment that is deemed unfair. Papers will consider discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity and religion. The literature on identity politics usually infers that the experience of discrimination is constitutive of group consciousness that may later lead to political engagement (Dubois 1903; Young 1990; Cohen 2010). However, depending on their experience, socialization and conception of justice, individuals do not always identify unequal treatment as discrimination. The papers – using different methodological approaches – will explore how the national and local contexts shape individual responses to discrimination. While Lamont and her colleagues (2016) have explored in great details individual responses to discrimination in three countries (the US, Brazil and Israel), Europe is not part of their inquiry and the issue of political consciousness remains marginal. This panel will tackle these issues, by comparing the experience of discrimination of both migrants and native born racial minorities in Europe and Noth America.