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Widening Participation in France and Its Effects on the Field of Elite Higher Education and on Educational Policy

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Policy and Inequality in Education

Part of the book series: Education Policy & Social Inequality ((EPSI,volume 1))

Abstract

This chapter analyzes policies of widening participation (WP) in elite higher education institutions and, more specifically, the programs launched in France in the early 2000s. Although these policies concern a small number of beneficiaries and are still far from significantly improving the access of disadvantaged students to the most selective sector of higher education, they represent an interesting object of study for sociologists of education for at least two reasons. The first is that these policies have to some extent modified the internal power relations between institutions in the field of elite higher education. The second is that the institutions involved have proposed analyses of, and solutions to, educational inequalities that have influenced the way in which the latter are framed and tackled at the local and national level.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The French higher education system comprises the grandes écoles and preparatory classes offering 5-year programs corresponding to the master level; universities (which are generally public and nonselective) offering 3, 5, and 8-year programs corresponding to the bachelor, master, and Ph.D. levels; and 2-year vocational programs provided either by secondary schools or by Institutes of Technology.

  2. 2.

    The concours is a competitive exam for a limited number of places created after the French Revolution to recruit and train “talented” youth to occupy high-level technical and administrative state positions. The classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles (CPGEs) were created to help students prepare for the concours during two to three years after the baccalauréat. They are located in lycées (high schools) but are considered a segment of higher education.

  3. 3.

    Lycées are high schools that prepare pupils during 3 years for the final national examination, the baccalauréat, necessary to continue further into higher education. Students are separated into several tracks (academic, technical, and vocational), which are not always present in all institutions. The CPGE, as well as Sciences Po, recruit the vast majority of their students from the academic tracks only.

  4. 4.

    For lack of space, I do not present in this chapter another emblematic initiative launched by one of the two most prestigious public CPGEs in Paris studied in this research. This initiative was later duplicated by a few other CPGEs, but given the institutional differences between CPGEs and GEs, these initiatives were not seen as comparable or in competition with the Sciences Po and Essec schemes.

  5. 5.

    The term “banlieues” is used in France to refer to the outskirts of big cities, especially Paris, characterized by strong concentrations of disadvantaged and ethnic minority groups.

  6. 6.

    There are three main tracks in high school: academic, general, and vocational.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Science Po, Paris, France

    Agnès van Zanten

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  1. Agnès van Zanten
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Correspondence to Agnès van Zanten .

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  1. School of Education, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom

    Stephen Parker

  2. School of Education, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Kalervo N. Gulson

  3. School of Education, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom

    Trevor Gale

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van Zanten, A. (2017). Widening Participation in France and Its Effects on the Field of Elite Higher Education and on Educational Policy. In: Parker, S., Gulson, K., Gale, T. (eds) Policy and Inequality in Education. Education Policy & Social Inequality, vol 1. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4039-9_5

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