Making the right move: how families are using transfers to adapt to socio-spatial differentiation of schools in the greater Paris region

Making the right move: how families are using transfers to adapt to socio-spatial differentiation of schools in the greater Paris region

[SHS:SOCIO] Humanities and Social Sciences/Sociology

[SHS:GEO] Humanities and Social Sciences/Geography

school

segregation

social groups

social-spatial differenciation

Since the late 1980s, much research has been devoted to the strategies that families use in France to avoid sending their children to the public schools assigned to them by the carte scolaire, which defines school districts. But while there is substantial sociological literature on the different criteria of family choices, relatively little has been said so far about how the geographic location of the school and its implantation in a given space influence these choices. In order to examine the specific effects that the spatial aspect (location) of the education offer has on differentiating education practices within the same social category, it seems necessary to understand first of all how social practices are adapted to different contexts. Too often sociologists tend to consider the factor of social origin alone, or focus on a simple correlation of variables, such as the educational level or income level of parents. However, as Pierre Bourdieu has shown, it is above all a comprehension of the distribution structure of economic and cultural capital that makes it possible to understand the differentiation in schooling practices. This article explores the hypothesis that education strategies can only be really understood if one analyses how families - depending on the economic and cultural capital they possess - can adapt their strategies to an education offer that has specific socio-spatial characteristics. This article presents the results of a survey that was conducted in a community selected for its exemplary characteristics; the questionnaire distributed to parents of students entering Grade 6 thus made it possible to test the hypothesis of how families adjust to educational provision, depending on the distribution of the capital (economic and cultural) they possess.

François, Jean-Christophe

Poupeau, Franck

journal of educational policy

2007

ENG

article in peer-reviewed journal

http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00160786

DOI: 10.1080/02680930601065858

http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/16/07/86/PDF/RightMove2006.pdf