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Friday, August 3, 2012: 10:45 AM
Faculty of Economics, TBA
Oral
This communication examine the relationship that exists between students from four elite French schools (Polytechnique, ENS Ulm, HEC, Sciences Po) known collectively as the grandes écoles (GE) and the identities as students from these elite establishments. The sanctioning function exercised by the highly competitive entrance exams into these elite schools is well known: a title of academic nobility will follow the admitted students throughout their entire lives (Bourdieu, 1989). Being admitted thus signifies an automatic change in social status for the student. But how is this status marker experienced depending on being a national or an international students? Does it represents the same process for theses two categories of students? If the “institutional rite”, as Pierre Bourdieu coined the national entrance exams for the most prestigious grandes écoles, is tantamount to being dubbed for the national students, it cannot assume the same meaning for the international students, those key actors of globalization. Coming from different education systems, being admitted trough specific procedures and unfamiliar to the French context and it’s strong logic of elite distinction, they cannot get the same benefit in terms of social distinction from their identity as students from these higher education institutions. The dramaturgical analysis of organizational identities adopted by national and international students thus lead us to suggest that, in France, the academic pedigree mainly remains a national status marker.
References
Darchy-Koechlin, B., Draelants, H. (2010), To belong or not to belong? The French model of elite selection and the integration of international students, French Politics, Vol. 8 (4), pp. 429-446.
Draelants, H., Darchy-Koechlin, B. (2011), Flaunting One’s Academic Pedigree? Self-Presentation of Students from Elite French Schools, British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 32 (1), pp. 19-36.