From the Baccalauréat to Higher Education in France: Shifting Inequalities

Abstract

The extent to which education in France has been democratized is subject to debate: although school enrolment rates have continued to rise, does this trend reflect a true reduction in the social inequality of access to the various levels and courses of school and university education? Following an article published in Population in 2000, whose title evoked this controversial issue, Marie Duru-Bellat and annick kieffer conduct a detailed analysis of the mechanisms by which inequalities are reproduced in higher education in France. Their results bring clear critical evidence to the debate by showing that the quantitative opening-up of the education system is still accompanied by a marked social differentiation of students enrolled in different courses and subjects. The topic of the democratization of education has been extensively studied in French social science research. There is nonetheless a continuous need to update data and interpretations to take account of changes affecting the educational system over time. In this respect, the 1985-1995 period is of particular interest, since it saw a spectacular increase in the proportion of each cohort passing the baccalauréat examination, and thus achieving a qualification at the end of seven years in secondary education (between the ages of 17 and 19). The proportion of baccalauréat-holders per cohort, which was around 5% in 1950, rose from 20% in 1970 to 29.4% in 1985, 43.5% in 1990 and 62.7% in 1995. It has remained stationary since that date. This order-of-magnitude change in the number of young people gaining a qualification at the end of secondary school occurred within an increasingly diversified system. Since the baccalauréat in France entitles the holder to enter higher education, the number of university students also rose sharply, with a doubling of the number of graduates from 1985 to 1996. Against this background of a rapid change that appears now to have levelled off, it is interesting to assess