What have been used for priority education areas since their birth in 1981 ? Born of the critical sociology of the 1960s and 1970s, they had the ambition to give more to the most disadvantaged school audiences. Insufficient evaluated, institutionalized in a certain ministerial indifference, they are today under the fire of criticism.
The most disadvantaged assistance for educational establishments are useful ? As Robert Bénédicte immediately underlines in this book drawn from a political science thesis that she recently defended, priority education policies, and their best known aspect, priority education areas (Zep), have aroused numerous reactions since their implementation in the 1980s. Several evaluation documents (Catherine Moisan and Jacky Simon report in 1997, study of theINSEE In 2003 or report of the Court of Auditors in 2009) indeed chanted the history of the public debate on the subject of priority education, with a criticism often hard with regard to efficiency, or even legitimacy , of these devices.
Genesis of Zep
However, shows Bénédicte Robert, the genesis and the definition of these policies are often poorly known. Their genesis is in the 1960s and 1970s. Certain sectors of the teaching world, the left and teaching unionism (SNI and above all Sgen–CFDT) then criticized equality “ formal From the Republican School, which consisted in attributing to all the same means. In fact, in fact, it proved to be for an increasing number of practitioners and education observers that the best endowed students were favored by the educational institution. In these circles marked on the left, the work of critical sociology (Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeon, then Christian Baudelot and Roger Establet) pointed out the limits of republican egalitarianism in school matters. Strengthened by the protest breath of May 68, these studies have also provided legitimization to experiments made at primary school or the first cycle of the second degree. Among these innovative methods, we can cite differentiated pedagogy, educational team work or the use of experimentation. The initiatives are put in place at the local level, if not in hostility, at least in the indifference of national education.
In the 1970s emerged the notion of “ unequal school Who intends to give more resources to the most disadvantaged establishments and audiences. This idea deeply marks the educational programs of the left parties (in particular that of the Socialist Party), of the educational union Sgen–CFDT And many pedagogy researchers who popularize it during this decade. The consecration arrived in 1981, with the implementation of Zepwhich, under the ministry of Alain Savary, are the translation of the concept of unequal school (“ give more to those who are disadvantaged to restore real equality »). These priority educational policies systems have often been at the heart of French educational debates, especially in the confrontation between the camp “ educational “(Defender of a school reform) and the camp” republican (Supporter of a more traditional school). It is in this genealogy of an often lively debate that Bénédicte Robert’s work is placed. His doctoral work, using a comparison between French and American priority policies, is an analysis of their destinies and the practices they have aroused.
Bénédicte Robert immediately places himself in the field of political science, highlighting the usefulness of an analysis of priority educational policies with the tools of this discipline, alongside history and the sciences of education. Although the work is turned towards French experience, comparisons with the American example abound: the similarity of the debates and the difficulties of priority educational policies is all the more striking. Thus, criticism fluctuated, on both sides of the Atlantic, between an ideological position (inequality of treatment with public power is illegitimate) and an acid analysis of the effectiveness of school action in favor of populations and of the most disadvantaged establishments.
On the other hand, Bénédicte Robert underlines the importance of the Center/Periphery ratio in the management of priority educational policies. It notably shows the passage of Zep From rectoral or decentralized management to a desire for national piloting. From relatively autonomous experimentation at the local level (1981-1984), there is an attempt to centralize the policy of Zep. Similarly, the growing institutionalization of priority policies, more and more managers since the 1980s, is a central element of Bénédicte Robert’s analysis.
After a solid bibliographical and historiographical reminder, the author distinguishes three periods in the implementation of Zep ::
1) The implementation, during the ministry of Alain Savary, of priority education policies.
2) the institutionalization of Zepas part of a relative disinterest in public action, from 1984 to 1998.
3) partial questioning and attempts to assess Zep Since 1998.
The complex fate of priority education policies
Between 1981 and 1984, Alain Savary’s Ministry of National Education multiplied educational sites and reform proposals (we can cite in particular the Legrand report on colleges or the Peretti report on teacher training). Among these, the implementation of Zep It is ultimately not the most discussed point at the time. Colleges are the establishments that benefit most from priority policies, in a context of high massification of secondary education. The idea of allocating more resources to establishments in working -class neighborhoods in crisis is organically linked, underlines Bénédicte Robert, to the desire to democratize in fact the hexagonal school system in colleges and high schools. Teachers are given additional remuneration and establishments of specific means: the questioning of formal equality, deeply rooted in republican school culture, is patent.
This policy “ compensatory “, According to the author of the author, had a goal and a temporary form: it was necessary” level up These establishments, allow them to play a role in the democratization of the secondary, it being understood that the effectiveness of these devices should be evaluated. However, the Zep will continue despite their initially provisional character – at least in the spirit of the legislator. Paradoxically, the relative disinterest in the central administration is concomitant with de facto institutionalization, from 1984, of priority educational policies. With the arrival rue Grenelle de Jean-Pierre Chevènement, the rehabilitation of the “ republican school “Becomes the leitmotif of the action of the Ministry of National Education. Priority educational policies are continued without the system being truly evaluated. It is the rectural administrations that manage these, in a relative consensus-or disinterest ? – Right and left governments, which are not very much seeking to modify the policies driven in 1981 and to assess the results. In 1990, a coordinator of priority education policies was implemented, proof of the growing institutionalization of these: it is both to try a first national assessment and to make a central framework for practices until practices -What local.
What report “ Cost/benefit »» ?
With the return of the left in power in 1997 and the school crisis in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, which was strongly publicized under the Ministry of Claude Allègre, the Zep come back to the front of the stage and on the agenda of decision -makers. Catherine Moisan’s report is a first attempt to assess the concrete effects of politics at that time. From now on, the question of real results and the report “ Cost/benefit “Becomes central. The efficiency of Zep is more particularly criticized, in particular by a study published by theINSEE in 2003.
In conclusion, what is the assessment of a reform today almost thirty -year ? Two theses compete. On the one hand, some emphasize that funding and devices have been stacked. THE Zep have been implemented and used without real evaluation. For the most critical authors, the only difference between these establishments and the others comes down to “ two less students per class One of the only concrete – and expensive – results – of these devices. Others, on the other hand, claim that priority education policies have made it possible to avoid aggravation of school failure and tensions in a secondary secondary massification (especially at the level of college). The author, at the end of an unprecedented and multidisciplinary research, underlines the paradoxical destiny of priority educational policies. At a time when we are talking about Zep as a means of extracting a “ elite “Popular neighborhoods, the recall of this hit and ambiguous story can only stimulate everyone’s analyzes and reflections.