Key word: affirmative action, discrimination, scholar guidance
Key learned :
- Equal of opportunity : vision of equality that seeks to ensure that people have “equal opportunities” regardless of their social or ethnic origin, their sex, the financial means of their parents, their religious conviction, a possible disability …
- Scholar guidance : like scholar orientation, school counseling
- Disabilities : synonym for handicap
I) Affirmative action
Discrimination corresponds to unequal treatment of individuals or groups because of their category of membership which has for consequence a reduction of the options and opportunities that the discriminated individual can claim (Calves, 2010).
However, all the forms of discriminations are not directed with the aim of disadvantaging minorities. Indeed, there is a second side of the discrimination, so-called “positive” discrimination, also known as “special temporary measures”, “positive action” or “access to equality program”. But, we meet a problem in the definition. The affirmative action is a method which consists in establishing a formal inequality through preferential treatment granted to a category of person discriminated because of their category of membership whom they didn’t choose (age, sex, ethnic group, handicap …) and which consequently confines them to determinism (Slama, 2004). The expected result is a real equal of opportunities. This method suggests to use a mode of action whose objective is positive, but paradoxically affirmative action takes the form of a discrimination to reach the said goal. More broadly, affirmative action is defined as the set of social allocation policies considering applicants’ membership of designated groups in order to address their under-representation in relation to the reference population (Sabbagh & Van Zanten, 2010).
In France, this form of discrimination escalate since the 1970s. In 1981 the Schwartz report recommended that “affirmative action” be made in the professional and social integration of young people. Fifteen years later, we are witnessing the creation of the first Priority Education Zones (ZEP). Despite of diversified actions, there is only one law in France based on the principle of affirmative action: the law of February 11th, 2005 for the equality of the rights and opportunities, participation and citizenship of disabled people. This law sets compulsory quotas for employers and so objective to promote access to employment for people with disabilities. In the legal framework, four conditions must be respected to speak of affirmative action. First of all, the preference shouldn’t be permanent but punctual, moreover it should not be excessive, in fact the goal is to bring about equality, which is also why it shouldn’t be to be exclusive. Finally, the preference must remain flexible.
II) Scholar guidance
It’s only in 1959 that school guidance made its appearance thanks to the Berthoin Reform. As a result of the pursuit studies up to sixteen years, the landing of orientation is not any more situated in 5th year of primary school but in the fifth. Abilities of pupils are assessed throughout the observation cycle. At the end of this cycle students are oriented in five streams: a general, long and classical education for future managers; short terminal education for future specialized workers, artisans, farmers; long technical education for senior technicians; a short technical education to train skilled workers and finally a short general education delivered in a new college, the college of general education (Berthelot, 1988, qtd in Stevanovic, 2008). Nowadays, school guidance breaks down into three stages. Everything starts in the third, students have to choose between three paths: general, technological or professional. Then in 2nd, those who have turned to general or technological high school require a passage in first general or technological. Finally, in the final year, third level, students integrate either a selective stream as CPGE, IUT, STS or a university sector.
The term of ”orientation” refers both to the methods of production and reproduction of the technical and social division of labor and to giving a definite direction to one’s life. In school, it is advising a child on the job that he can choose. (Guichard & Huteau, 2005). At the school level, the orientation consists of directing a student towards a profession, advising him on the job he can choose but also that he is able to do. However, with the social inequalities of choice of option and progression, the orientation contributes to the increase of the social inequalities of curricula. Orientation is possible only if there is no determinism but choice. If the role of guidance is considered essential it is because it is considered as a response to family demands. In other words, we are more inclined to believe in the usefulness of the degree and we want more for our child when we ourselves are educated and / or from a high social background.Beyond the social, economic and political stakes that educational counseling represents, it is a personal and identity issue, for any individual, whether or not he has chosen his orientation. Orientation is therefore both a “political concern” and a “concern for oneself” (Vouillot, 2007).
III) The programs
Criticized for their social elitism, the prestigious universities have created programs of action aimed at recruiting or at least catching the attention of students from underrepresented backgrounds in the sectors of excellence of the French higher education system. The objective is to reduce the gaps in the chances of access to the highest levels of education because despite the establishment of “single college” and “unique high school” since the twentieth century, inequalities of access to education persist.
The social opening of the prestigious universities gives various advantages to young high school students from disadvantaged groups in order to raise their ambitions and facilitate their access to higher education sectors of excellence. The two best-known examples are the program “Conventions Education Prioritaires” (CEP) set up by Sciences Po in 2001 and the program “Pourquoi Pas Moi?” (PQPM) created by the Higher School of Economic and Commercial Sciences (ESSEC) in 2002 (Van Zanten, 2010). The Science Po program aims to open a new way of recruitment reserved for students from disadvantaged secondary schools while ESSEC is setting up a tutoring program for high school students from popular and immigrant backgrounds. The educational offer of these two programs is also based on a personalized action with beneficiaries who comes to coach and lift “self-censorship” of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Central attention is now given to “made to mesure” interventions with a limited number of students, not at the beginning of the ZEP policy, to massive action directed at students from lower-class backgrounds (Rochex , 2008). The fight against inequality is thus replaced by individual promotion. In 2006 emerges at the Lycée Henri IV a “Classe Préparatoire aux Etudes Supérieures” (CPES) for students from disadvantaged backgrounds where students are followed by tutors selected from the former high school students to promote their access to the “Classe Préparatoires des Graneds Ecoles” (CPGE) particularly selective (Rotman, 2006).
Rincé Ascoua Sabrina
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Calvès, G. (2010). La discrimination positive. Paris : Presses Universitaires de France.
Guichard, J., & Huteau, M. (2005) L’Orientation Scolaire et Professionnelle. Paris : Dunod.
Legifrance (2016). Loi n° 2005-102 du 11 février 2005 pour l’égalité des droits et des chances, la participation et la citoyenneté des personnes handicapées (1). Repéré à https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000809647
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Vouillot, F. (2007). L’orientation aux prises avec le genre. Travail, genre et sociétés, 2(18), 87-108.