Marco Oberti studies social diversity in the city and in the school. Based on an investigation carried out in Nanterre and Rueil-Malmaison, he criticizes the idea of a generalization of social separatism, especially in the middle classes.
From a survey on social diversity in the city and school in the western suburbs of Paris, the last work of Marco Oberti, lecturer at Sciences Po Paris and researcher at the sociological observatory of change, brings to light the mechanisms at stake in the relationships between urban and school segregations, as well as those of the school card, at the very moment when its abolition is inscribed on the political agenda. For Marco Oberti, focusing on the middle classes to understand the avoidance practices of renowned schools most difficult is misleading. Indeed, it shows that parents belonging to the upper classes are the most (self-) segregated and that they play an essential role in the factory of school segregation. The work thus makes it possible to qualify the previous work on the avoidance of the middle classes and call into question the vision “ secessionist »Practices of these families who would strategically seek to avoid colleges where children of popular families are educated. Eric Maurin’s thesis, according to which “ The segregation mechanisms cross the whole society and not only its fringes », Either the generalization of social separatism to all social scales, is questioned by this reflection.
The choice of this land makes it possible not to limit the survey to a popular district or to a specific area, and therefore to consider several social groups, in particular the “ Mixed average spaces “Who understands” middle classes “, Or essentially the” Intermediate professions ». We understand all the interest of comparing two socially contrasting cities, Nanterre, former commune of the “ Red suburbs », And Rueil-Malmaison, bourgeois commune.
Three clues are retained to analyze the school choices of parents whose children enter into sixth: the social profile of the municipality, the school offer and the socio-professional category of households. Marco Oberti thus confirms the results of previous work according to which the school card, insofar as it does not apply in an egalitarian way to all social groups, insofar as families of popular classes seem the least endowed with economic, cultural and social resources to bypass it at the entrance to the sixth, has the perverse effect of strengthening the territorial assignment of these. The effect produced is greater social segregation in schools than in the municipalities where they are located. The very strong correlation is also confirmed between the social profile of the municipalities and the characteristics of the school offer.
The qualitative part of the investigation, which is based on two hundred and twenty in -depth interviews with inhabitants of the two cities studied (chapter VIII : “ Choose your neighborhood, choose your school ), Allows us to qualify, by an analysis of speeches and taking into account the constraints that families can undergo, the avoidance strategies for middle -class families. Three different logics, which are inspired by the model of the sociology of François Dubet’s experience, appear from these interviews: logics of protection, performance, and withdrawal. The protection logic is for Marco Oberti, not a strategy but a real logic of integration. Some respondents belonging to the middle classes do not declare themselves to be opposed to social mix, except in the event that social and ethno-racial segregations seem harmful to the development of their child. That said, the diversity of the category “ middle class “Seems very important and could be more specified. Indeed, its components best endowed with cultural capital like the “ Information, arts and show professions “, THE “ teachers “Or the” teachers “, Present divergent behaviors, as shown by the study of Jean-Christophe François and Frank Poupeau.
To fight against these perverse effects, the author proposes to apply the sectorization to private education under contract, to make the school offer more homogeneous in the territory, and to develop preventive mechanisms to the logics of enclavement, in order to promote the spatial mobility of all students, whatever their social belonging. However, the observation of “ local captivity “Families of the popular environment could be deepened by the study of infra-communal school avoidance, as well as by school avoidance at the entrance to the school, when children, in particular those who have a journey of academic success, are able to negotiate the choice of the establishment.
Once the mechanisms of urban and school segregations have been uncovered, it remains to question their links with ethno-racial discrimination practices. These are here more understood in terms of perception than from the social relationships that produce them.
Finally, this study, the interest of which is to finely articulate two types of segregation-urban and academic-, nevertheless comes up against a few limits linked to the choices of the field and to the statistical data used, which do not allow to study the avoidance mechanisms at the infra-communal level, nor to take into account the different social stratifications which make up the category of “ middle class ».