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This article looks at how the ways of regulating young people’s access to higher education have evolved in France. It starts from the premise that these modes of regulation reflect specific conceptions of the social order and of equality (Commaille and Jobert 1998; Forsé 2006). We focus on two types of tension underlying the new procedures and standards for access to higher education. The first has to do with the opposition between two visions—one prescriptive, the other liberal—of how the number of places available and the number of applicants should be matched up. The second concerns the tension between two ideal-typical conceptions of equality: a predominantly liberal one that favors unfettered, merit-based competition among individuals; and a more socialistic one that places emphasis on reducing gaps between social groups, in particular through choices that support groups at the bottom of the social scale (Meuret 1999). The article analyzes the effects of introducing online platforms to centrally manage applications and to allocate high school graduates places in higher education institutions. It explores the differences between the two platforms that have been used to date in France—Admission Post-Bac (APB) and its successor, Parcoursup—and the kinds of coordination they have facilitated between national and local bodies, particularly between the Ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l’Innovation (MESRI) (Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation) and higher education institutions…

Abstract

English

This article looks at how the ways of regulating young people’s access to higher education have evolved in France. It starts from the premise that these modes of regulation reflect specific conservative or progressive conceptions of the social order, and liberal or socialistic conceptions of equality. The analysis focuses on the procedures and standards associated with the two online application management platforms that have appeared over the past decade, Admission Post-Bac (APB) and its successor, Parcoursup. It also highlights elements of both continuity and change across the platforms. One point that these platforms have in common, as it turns out, is that they maintain the stratification of French higher education and its role in the perpetuation of inequalities, while introducing new elements that have a more commercial feel. These elements have a stronger presence in the Parcoursup platform, which explicitly encourages baccalaureate holders to behave as marketable subjects, and universities to adopt the recruitment methods that selective courses use.

  • online platforms
  • equal opportunity
  • guidance
  • higher education
  • Parcoursup
  • selection
  • universities
Français

Cet article s’intéresse à l’évolution des modes de régulation de l’accès des jeunes à l’enseignement supérieur en France en partant du postulat que ces modes relaient des conceptions spécifiques de l’ordre social (conservatrices ou progressistes) et de l’égalité (libérales ou sociales). L’analyse porte sur les procédures et les normes associées aux deux plateformes numériques de gestion des candidatures qui se sont succédé ces dix dernières années, Admission Post-Bac (APB) et Parcoursup, en soulignant les éléments de continuité et de changement. Il en ressort que ces plateformes ont en commun d’entretenir la stratification de l’enseignement supérieur français et son rôle dans la reproduction des inégalités tout en introduisant de nouvelles dimensions à tonalité plus marchande. Ces dimensions sont plus présentes dans la plateforme Parcoursup qui encourage explicitement les bacheliers à se comporter en sujets marchands et les universités à adopter les modes de recrutement des filières sélectives.

  • APB
  • égalité des chances
  • enseignement supérieur
  • orientation
  • Parcoursup
  • plateformes numériques
  • sélection
  • universités

Outline

  1. Continuities and changes in modes of regulation
    1. The intersection of conservative and meritocratic aims
    2. The articulation of goals and regulatory mechanisms
  3. New ways of managing student numbers that promote an equal opportunity model with a stronger market orientation
    1. “Free” choices, formally supported and monitored but highly unequal
    2. Programs can now develop their own admission criteria, and compensatory practices are tentative
  5. Similarities and differences in the practices of two universities in Île-de-France
    1. Various local interpretations of the selection principle
    2. The poorly controlled and inconsistent implementation of support measures
  7. Conclusion

Authors

Leïla Frouillou
Leïla FROUILLOU is a lecturer in sociology at Université Paris Nanterre and a researcher at the Centre de recherches sociologiques politiques de Paris (Center for Sociological and Political Research), as part of the Genre, Travail, Mobilités (Gender, Work, and Mobility) team (Cresppa-GTM). Her research focuses on the spatial aspects of educational inequalities. The main results of her PhD were published as Ségrégations universitaires en Île-de-France: Inégalités d’accès et trajectoires étudiantes (Paris: La Documentation française 2017). She studies higher education guidance and placement systems (Affelnet, Admission Post-Bac, and Parcoursup), as well as the urban practices of young people from working-class neighborhoods (research that is coordinated by Marie-Hélène Bacqué), and she co-edited Pour la recherche urbaine (Paris: CNRS éditions 2020), a publication resulting from the foresight work carried out by the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) (French National Center for Scientific Research).
leila.frouillou@parisnanterre.fr
Clément Pin
Clément PIN is a sociologist and political scientist, contractual lecturer at Cergy Paris University and member of the Laboratoire interdisciplinaire d’évaluation des politiques publiques (Interdisciplinary Laboratory for the Evaluation of Public Policy) (LIEPP) at Sciences Po. His research focuses on educational and university policies, the sociological study of their instruments, their local governance and their evaluation. His recent publications include the journal articles “La gouvernance territoriale de l’innovation: Politique de cluster et policy feedbacks dans le contexte parisien (2005–2015),” Gouvernement et action publique 9, no. 1 (2020): 57–85, and, with Carlo Barone, “L’apport des méthodes mixtes à l’évaluation. Une expérimentation randomisée dans le champ des politiques éducatives”, Revue française de science politique 71, no. 3 (2021):391-412.
clement.pin@sciencespo.fr
Agnès van Zanten
Agnès VAN ZANTEN is a director of research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) (French National Center for Scientific Research), working at the Observatoire sociologique du changement (Sociological Observatory of Change), where she leads the team on educational dynamics and policies. She is presently coordinating three research projects at the Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire d’Evaluation des Politiques Publiques (LIEPP) of Sciences Po and also edits the “Éducation et société” series at Presses universitaires de France. Her current main areas of research are inequality in education, the education of elites, access to higher education, and widening participation policies. She recently edited Elites in Education (London: Routledge 2018, 4 vols.), and is the co-author, alongside Marie Duru-Bellat and Géraldine Farges, of Sociologie de l’école, fifth edition (Paris: Armand Colin 2018), and has published articles in the journals Raisons éducatives, Zeitschrift für Pädagogik, Revue française de pédagogie, Sociologie, British Journal of the Sociology of Education and Comparative Education.
agnes.vanzanten@sciencespo.fr
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