Success for all children in France: extrapolating lessons from the international experience

Abstract

Equity in education is a key to fostering integration, enhance social mobility and enable every child to fulfil her potential both in her studies and her adult life. While France is a country attached to egalitarian principles, it delivers one of the less equitable education system among OECD member-states. An urgent need to address this issue requires the French government to learn, possibly from its neighbors. The extrapolation methodology suggests a path for cross-national learning and infers that inspiration can be drawn from the international experience. The analysis of context and design factors in Finland, England and Germany reveals the activation of certain mechanisms in the causal chain toward equity. France could benefit from accountability, trustworthiness and positive incentives but the interaction of such mechanisms with context factors would determine their relevance in triggering equity. This thesis concludes that accountability and positive incentives are more likely to take effect in France than trustworthiness.