Factors Provoking French Brain Drain

Abstract

Just as Bourdieu’s prolific writings have been shown to have significant relevance to the issues discussed in this book, Chauvel’s work on class structures has also proved fundamental to the framework of my inquiry because the predicament France’s Generation X graduates face is more pertinent to the middle classes. As the problems the ‘intellectual underclass’ must confront are the raison d’être of my inquiry, Louis Chauvel’s (1998, 2006a) research on intergenerational inequalities is clearly relevant to the discussions in this book. Bourdieu explains how social classes, especially the ruling or intellectual classes foster intergenerational transmission of their social privileges through formal education in spite of contemporary post-industrial society espousing a spirit of meritocratic triumph through sheer talent, and equality of opportunity and high social mobility (Wolfreys, 2000).