Conference Program

The neoliberal turn in educational policies in France has progressed more discreetly than in other so-called “Northern” countries, yet it has advanced steadily since the 1980s. Four decades after the emergence of new public management reforms (Maroy, 2006), decentralisation, results-based governance and increasing competition between public and private actors in education, the consequences of these transformations for reducing social and educational inequalities remain a key issue for research and public debate.

A growing body of sociological literature suggests that contemporary educational policies tend less to focus on reducing structural inequalities and achievement gaps than on enabling each student to perform as well as possible within a meritocratic framework (Rochex, 2020; Frandji & Rochex, 2011). Such policies are often embedded in individualising and naturalising interpretations of educational success and failure, which risk reinforcing inequalities by shifting attention away from the social conditions shaping access to knowledge and learning. In this perspective, the emphasis on personal responsibility, competences and adaptability may contribute to redefining the role of public education and the aims of compensatory policies.

This paper analyses these transformations through the case of the Cités éducatives programme. Introduced in France in 2019, this national policy label targets disadvantaged urban areas identified within urban policy frameworks. Its main objective is to strengthen coordination among existing initiatives and stakeholders in priority neighbourhoods and schools within priority education schemes, with the goal of fostering “educational success” among children and young people.

Drawing on an empirical investigation conducted in one local Cité éducative, the study examines processes of policy design, governance and implementation at the territorial level. It assesses the extent to which this configuration contributes to reducing inequalities in access to knowledge and learning. Findings show that Cités éducatives create spaces for the multiplication of educational actors locally, including the growing involvement and legitimisation of non-profit organisations in addressing students’ learning difficulties. These actors intervene both in disadvantaged schools and during formal schooling time, reshaping the boundaries of educational action.

The research also highlights that some interventions rely on naturalising and pathologising interpretations of school inequalities, which tend to minimise the centrality of knowledge transmission and pedagogical conditions of learning. By focusing on individual deficits or socio-emotional competences, such approaches may paradoxically reinforce the inequalities they aim to reduce.

More broadly, the paper argues that these developments are embedded in a neoliberal configuration of public action characterised by the partial delegation of educational responsibilities to the non-profit private sector (Massei, 2024) and governance arrangements encouraging competition and partnerships between public and private actors. Analysing Cités éducatives thus sheds light on the reconfiguration of educational policies and on tensions between social justice objectives and managerial logics in contemporary education systems.