Facing the equal opportunity challenge in French higher education: The case of the Institut pratique du journalisme of Paris-Dauphine University PSL

Abstract

Educational inequality in France is not a new issue (Bourdieu 1970; Duru-Bellat 2002; van Zanten 2009; 2010). The education of the French elites is one end of a long chain of successive inequalities. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, some French higher education institutions have tried to respond to this issue by developing new practices aimed at improving the accessibility of young people coming from underprivileged backgrounds and poor districts. This article focuses on these recent practices. Based on a sample of recent French data and case studies, the article aims to enrich the debate about the accessibility and democratization of higher education in France. We reflect on these issues via the case study of a diversity labeling process at the IPJ Paris-Dauphine school of journalism. The diversity labeling process was subject to the dual demands of responsibility to ensure access to journalism training for students on the one hand, and to respect the specificity of a school that trains in media production and its representations on the other. We demonstrate how this case illustrates the dynamics proper to diversity management in a French higher education institution.