C. Smith Resources

 

Smith, C. (18 December, 2005) “Elite French Schools Block the Poor’s Path to Power,” The New York Times

 

 

Overview

In the midst of the recent riots in Paris suburbs, students of the “grandes ecoles,” premier institutions of higher education, continued in the long-standing tradition of upper-class education. The tie between these two stories is that there are few minority students in such schools, but many minority teens involved in the riots.

 

Says Smith, “Nothing represents the stratification of French society more than the country’s rigid educational system, which has reinforced the segregation of disadvantaged second-generation immigrant youths by effectively locking them out of the corridors of power.”

 

 

·        Of the 350,000 students graduating annually from French high schools, virtually all of the 1,000 accepted to the “great schools” come from a handful of elite preparatory schools.

 

·        Most of the country’s political leaders are graduates of the great schools.

·        If the same case held in the U.S. roughly 80% of the heads of major corporations or government officials would have hailed from HarvardLawSchool

.

 

·        The “great schools” owe their origin to the French Revolution and Napoleonic Empire. They were developed to help the bourgeoisie rise in a society dominated by aristocracy.

·        Today the children of blue-collar workers make up roughly 2 percent of the student bodies at France

’s great schools, and few of these are minority students.

 

·        Most great school students come from special two-year preparatory schools which draw their students primarily from wealthy neighborhoods.

 

One elite school has designed an avenue of entry to help disadvantaged students can access to higher education. Also, the Conference of Grandes Ecoles, an association of 200 schools, has started a program to reach out to top students in working-class neighborhoods. Even still, the top half-dozen great schools, says Smith, remain closed to such students. Says Smith,

“The barriers for second-generation immigrants are enormous. Schools in poor, often immigrant neighborhoods get the most inexperienced teachers, who usually move on as soon as they have gained enough tenure for a job in a better area.”

 

The age of decision happens at 13, when young students have to decide if they will pursue a general course of study or specialized vocational training. Second-generation immigrants are typically guided toward the latter. Moreover, they tend to lack the social networking resources to attempt anything better. Schools in poor neighborhoods tend to set the bar of success at high school graduation, not anything higher.

 

 

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

 

1.      What is the relationship between education, race, and class in this article?

 

2.      Are you aware of any similar situations facing teenagers in your area?

 

3.      What else could be done to change the educational paradigm for working-class or economically-disadvantaged families and their children?

 

4.      Are more minority-recruitment programs a good idea?

 

 

Implications

Whether one is in France of America, students from underprivileged neighborhoods seem to fare worse than more privileged students when it comes to prospects for higher education. The quality of teaching may be one reason, but certainly there are more. For any student to excel he or she needs a community of support and encouragement in which educational success is not only valued but modeled.

 

 

Christopher S. Yates cCYS