Histories of statistics and quantification have demonstrated that systems of statistical knowledge participate in the construction of the objects that are measured. However, the pace, purpose, and scope of quantification in state bureaucracy have expanded greatly over the past decades, fuelled by (neoliberal) societal trends that have given the…

In this article, the author outlines some of the defensive weapons with which schools fight to hold their institutional authority over knowledge in a changing educational landscape. If schools are gripped by a crisis of epistemic authority, what are their strategies of shoring up their jurisdiction? To explore this question, the author turns to…

The old myth about the ability and variability of potential in children is a comforting myth, for those who are uneasy with the degree of inequality they see and would rather seek to justify it than confront it. The myth of inherent potential helps some explain to themselves why they are privileged. Extend the myth to believe in inherited ability…

This paper explores the prospective transition of immigrant and native students in France from lower to upper secondary school. Because they are more likely to be tracked to less prestigious (vocational) tracks, immigrant and immigrant-origin students are significantly disadvantaged at this key academic stage in comparison with the children of…

Relying upon recent research, this article puts into perspective the evolution of inequalities concerning both education and life chances in France since the 1960s. While a dramatic expansion of education has taken place, what consequences can one observe as far as social mobility and more broadly social reproduction are concerned? In fact, French…

The gross differences in scholastic achievement among public, private government-dependent, and private independent schools in 22 countries are analyzed with Programme for International Student Assessment 2000 data. In a multilevel approach, the authors estimate these sector effects, controlling for sociological characteristics of students and…

Pierre Bourdieu, the French sociologist whose work spanned over 40 years, died in January 2002. His work took in such diverse topics as international politics, colonialism, art and the media, marriage patterns of French farmers, and gender studies. As the Chair in Sociology at the College de France, Bourdieu published a number of major studies of…

Three questions are examined: (1) Why have contemporary American educators generally ignored Durkheim's sociology of education? (2) What were Durkheim's contributions to the sociology of education as his analysis related to social change through education? and (3) What is the relationship between Durkheim's sociology of education, social change,…

The institutional divisions between academic and technical education at the secondary level in France are analyzed. A brief account of the development of French technical education is also provided, and how pressures from certain social groups have affected both academic and technical education is discussed. (RM)

To theorize the "becoming child" this article presents desire rather than identity, following Deleuze and Guattari. For desire to proliferate differently, everything that social, religious and moral identities try to control and police, following Foucault, must be deconstructed, reconceptualized and enabled. To show how this is possible…

Research of Pierre Bourdieu in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s concerning higher education is reviewed and three phases of work are distinguished. The work, primarily in the sociology of education, is then compared with some issues currently dominating discussion, practice, and research in higher education in the United Kingdom. (MSE)

Examining the ways in which Western European countries have presented and justified educational reform, Neave explores the shift in values and social ethics that occupy the center of the educational stage. States that education is less a part of social policy, but is increasingly viewed as a sub-sector of economic policy. (GEA)

Conducted in Europe during the summer of 1971, the study attempts to show how three nations--Denmark, France, and West Germany--have taken steps to deal with the problems of economic growth in an advanced industrialized society by reconceptualizing the role of adult education. In the first four chapters the components of a new continuing education…

In this century all industrialized countries have experienced an increase in their populations' educational attainments. Researchers have wondered if this coincides with increased equality of educational opportunities. Data on the French population show only small changes in the pattern of association between origins and educational certification.…

A survey of employed men and women in France showed that French reproduction theory has overstated the role of education in reproducing class advantage from generation to generation. Education serves less as a reproducer of class advantage than as a vehicle of mobility into managerial positions. (Author/RM)