In these times of consultation and plans to overhaul the French education system, it is good to look at recent developments in our school to reflect the effects of the school policies implemented over the last ten years. This is what Pierre Merle proposes in a work of synthesis and conviction which dismantles the segregative mechanisms of this system.
Extent and challenges of school segregation
Pierre Merle is the author of several works, notably on evaluation practices, the democratization of teaching and on relationships between teachers and students. By tackling the issue of school segregation, it touches on what can be considered a particularly strong black spot in our education system: the separation of students at school based on their characteristics, which are acts on their gender, their educational level or their social and ethnic origins. The extent of this school segregation in France is very close to that observed in European countries which have maintained the organization of their compulsory secondary education into watertight and hierarchical sectors such as Germany, Hungary or the Austria. Which appears paradoxical for a country which displays the principles of equality with such conviction. Because this separation not only contravenes the official principles of “ the republican school » and “ unique college », it is also the origin of particularly marked educational inequalities. If we are to believe the surveys PISAFrance is one of the most unequal countries in terms of education: the achievements of 15-year-old students there depend more than elsewhere on their socio-economic background.
Supply and demand for schooling
How then can we explain the strength and extent of this school segregation? ? To account for this, the author uses several explanatory phenomena linked to developments in French society. On a socio-economic level, the progressive transformation of the link between diploma and employment in France since the mid-1970s explains the strengthening of academic competition and the development of a “ diploma race » whose value depends largely on rarity. As Christian Baudelot and Roger Establet have shown, this race for diplomas is fueled by an increasing precariousness of employment and a downgrading of graduates when hired, phenomena which in turn produce an increased demand for diplomas. The author concludes that “ the difficulties of integrating new graduates, combined with the growing profits associated with the most valued professional positions, have stimulated parental strategies for searching for the best school and favored the emergence of the ideology of “ college for everyone » (p. 31). Thus, the increased competition for the best places in the labor market has had repercussions at the educational level in the search for the rarest and most distinctive training and diplomas.
However, this research is not only the simple result of a request from families, the complexity of which Agnès van Zanten has shown in her work Choose your school. It is also the fruit – within public education itself – of a supply effect, as it is true that “ unique college » is characterized by an increasing differentiation of establishments through rare options, “ European classes ” And “ bi-languages » on one side, and exclusion channels such as educational rehabilitation establishments on the other. This development amounts to recreating, within the so-called single college, functional equivalents of the sectors. And in fact, the best students benefit from the best learning conditions (the most experienced teachers, high academic expectations, motivated peers, etc.) and the worst students are led to study in degraded conditions producing even more failure. This “ Matthew effect » which Marcel Crahay describes very well and which consists of giving more to those who have the most, is a particularly powerful factor in producing educational inequalities.
Educational policies and their role in school segregation
Were not priority education policies designed to combat these deleterious consequences of school segregation by giving “ more to those who have the least » ? Pierre Merle examines with great precision the effects of the most recent reforms concerning this policy with a view to evaluating their results. The Ambitions Réussite Networks systems (RAR), which consist of refocusing efforts on a limited number of establishments educating particularly disadvantaged populations are examined in terms of their effects on the degree of segregation of colleges and on the nature of the additional means implemented. The results he produces are not very flattering for this policy. It compares colleges before and after their rankings RARand observes particularly worrying developments: the turnover of teachers is increasing sharply (in the Paris Academy for example, it goes from less than 10% in 2006 to more than 45 % in 2009, table 2 page 62), requests for exemption from families increase from 10% to 25 %, and the numbers tend to decrease sharply. This development is explained by the stigmatizing effect of the classification RAR associating establishments with academic failure and problems of violence and discipline. At the end of the day, “ instead of promoting student progress and integration, the priority education policy has led to more academic and social segregation » (p. 67).
We would not understand the extent of school segregation in France without addressing the question of private education and its role in segregation processes. By the simple juxtaposition of two sectors of education, one free and the other paying, there is a social specialization of the private sector which enrolls very few disadvantaged students and a growing proportion of students from well-off backgrounds. By comparing the evolution of school segregation in the ten largest French cities, Pierre Merle shows an accentuation of this specialization of private education: “ From 2006 to 2010, students from disadvantaged origins are less and less present in private establishments where they were already in the minority, notably in Strasbourg (- 3 points), Lyon (- 3.9 points) and Nantes (- 4.7 points). The disengagement of the private sector in the education of students of working-class origin is particularly marked » (p. 76). But the author goes further in his analysis by showing that this specialization of the private sector is part of a process of “ ghettoization from above » reinforcing the school segregation – suffered – of the most disadvantaged.
It therefore emerges from these analyzes that the liberalization of the school map from 2007 has in no way rebalanced the respective role of each education sector. Even more, this liberalization, supposed to open the choice of college to more disadvantaged families, has only reinforced school segregation. By again comparing the dissimilarity indices of middle schools in the ten largest French cities, the author shows an increase in school segregation in these cities since 2007. The liberalization policy has therefore not allowed greater social diversity in the colleges, quite the contrary because parents from well-off and middle-income backgrounds “ residents of working-class districts have deserted the middle schools in their neighborhoods and enrolled their children in middle schools in the central districts » (p. 101).
What solutions ?
Ultimately this work is an excellent contribution to the debate on school and school policies. It provides convincing elements on recent developments in school segregation, its root causes and the processes at work in relation to educational policies.
However, if we can agree on the analysis, it seems to us that the avenues defined to limit segregation phenomena and improve ultimately the effectiveness and equity of the school, could be more in-depth. In his conclusion, the author proposes to break the process of social specialization of private establishments by giving the same constraints to the two teaching sectors “ so that private colleges do not have a structural competitive advantage » (p. 112). But it does not specify whether it would be a question of generalizing the current functioning of the private sector to the public sector, or conversely whether this would amount to governing the school allocations of the two sectors by a reinforced school map. In the first case, we would be using a model close to quasi-school markets like in England or Belgium. This would have the advantage of meeting the aspirations of many families who wish to choose the establishment for their child. But would this produce less segregation and more equity? ? Based on the research on these issues, this is not certain. The second solution would involve management by a school map which it is difficult to believe could restore social diversity in schools, while its implementation was not unrelated to school segregation in middle schools. since the mid-1970s. So here again, the reader is left wanting more.
Ultimately, if we follow Pierre Merle in his proposal to equalize schooling conditions to limit educational inequalities, the fact remains that the ways to achieve this still remain to be explored. And it is likely that a broad debate will be necessary to find innovative and effective responses to this segregative trend in French schools – and society.