Jean-Christophe François

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

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.

Petite enfance et scolarisation

Ce dossier presente des travaux recents, emanant de champs disciplinaires differents, concernant la petite enfance et la prescolarisation. S’interrogeant sur les evolutions de l’ecole maternelle et de son positionnement par rapport a l’ecole elementaire et aux structures non scolaires d’accueil et d’education des jeunes enfants, Pascale Garnier fait le constat d’une emprise croissante des orientations proprement scolaires, c’est-a-dire liees a l’ecole elementaire de l’ecole maternelle. Christophe Joigneaux analyse quant a lui, les processus de differenciation et de production d’inegalites des l’ecole maternelle, au sens ou ces processus apparaissent a ce niveau de la scolarite dans des domaines et des pratiques relevant de la raison graphique et de la forme scolaire, et qui sont a la fois pregnants des ce niveau de la scolarite et de plus en plus importants dans la suite du cursus. Ceci conduit l’auteur a interroger et a nuancer la pertinence de la distinction ou du Grand Partage entre formes orales pratiques et formes scripturo-scolaires, pour rendre compte de ces processus de differenciation precoces et des suivants. Enfin, Pierre Roques et al. ont etudie les modes de gestion et d’usage de l’espace interpersonnel chez les enfants de petite section de maternelle. Ils ont mis en evidence trois modes de gestion de cet espace, dont la stabilite durant l’annee scolaire et la mise en relation avec les modalites de participation sociale permettent de penser qu’ils relevent d’un developpement comportemental contribuant a la construction et a la differenciation des capacites interactives des enfants. Ce dossier apporte donc des connaissances et reflexions nouvelles sur un objet, l’ecole maternelle, qui a ete recemment au centre de debats et controverses, qu’il ne manquera pas d’eclairer.