UNIVERSITY OF LILLE
Call for papers
International multidisciplinary conference
17, 18 and 19 november 2015University of Lille 3
The professional pathway to the baccalauréat and the increase in levels of education : thirty years of the « professional baccalaureate »
Educational policies, school standards and the labor market In partnership with
The Ministry of Education The Céreq
The French Association of Sociology
(GT 46, RT 4, RT 5 « Class, inequality, fragmentation »)
France has committed since 1980 to a higher level of education policy successively marked by some key objectives: to guide "80% of an age group at the baccalauréat in 2000" but also 100 % of a generation at least at the level of the CAP1 or the BEP (1989) ; leading 50% of an age group to a diploma of higher education (2005) ; ensuring a continuum of training « from 3 years before the baccalaureate to 3 years after the baccalaureate » (2012). Out with those who, until the 1960s, " thought " of educational policy in terms of the minimum age of compulsory
1 The Certificat d’aptitude professionnelle (CAP) is a professional degree leading to workers and skilled employees jobs; it is rated at level V in the French classification of education levels, and level 3 in the classification ISCED/CITE. The Brevet d’études professionnelles (BEP) leads to the same kind of job but wants to be more cross, it is at the same level as the CAP. The professionnal baccalaureate, by contrast, is registered at level IV in the French nomenclature of training levels and level 3 in the classification ISCED/CITE.
schooling, these objectives promote quantitative ambitions of " graduation " of the population causing significant changes in the education system.They also produced significant effects on the modes of insertion of graduates as on the functioning of the labor market, as shown by the work of the Céreq (Centre for Studies and Research on Qualifications). Holding a diploma and passing the baccalaureate have thus become social norms, first for youth training, then for all workers. Meanwhile, school dropout levels and lack of a diploma have been designated as
"social problems" by the public authorities, individuals without a degree or other certification are now considered a priori as "unemployable"
.
Accentuated in France, where, for several years now, the diploma plays a decisive role in access to employment and social stratification, these issues are at the forefront of the concerns of the European Union.This very proactive policy has made a significant contribution to the professional pathway (id is the vocational education and apprenticeship), whose degrees and curricula have been metamorphosed several times to contribute to the education effort and the certification for most 2. In 1985, the professional baccalauréat was thus created to promote the success of the
"80%" while meeting the desire to raise the skill level of the workforce. Its first goal was nevertheless to encourage immediate entry into working life, a function that immediately provoked strong criticism in the name of the oxymoron contained in its title.
Fake « bac », lure, illusion …3 the professionnal baccalaureate has often been analyzed for what it is not. It remains therefore a rather unknown degree, first marked by its heterodoxy as a baccalaureate and as professional degree. The diversity of its specialties, with a very uneven flow participates in this ignorance, also fueled by the low interest of researchers towards the vocational track, often reduced to a mere segment "dominated" by the education system.
Thirty years after it was established, the « bac pro » ranks second however, in the trilogy baccalaureates in terms of exam candidates. Of the 678,000 candidates for the Baccalaureate of the 2013 session, 3 out of 10 are from the vocational track and 2 of 10 from the technological track4. If this "promotion" is partly due to the weakening of the technological track, whose educational flow decreases noticeably5, it comes mainly from the renovation of the vocational pathway, which was to remove the training curriculum at « BEP », to revive once again the « CAP » and to change the mode of preparation for the « bac pro ». Like other Baccalaureates, the « bac pro » is preparing, from now on, for three years after secondary school6 and the Ministry of Education clearly highlights its function of continuing study. It is now mobilized to enable France to lead 50% of a generation to a bachelor’s degree. It is important to know that it is thanks to its restructuring that the goal of leading 80% of an age
2 Cf Brucy G., 1998, Histoire des diplômes de l’enseignement technique et professionnel (1880-1965), Paris, Belin ; Moreau G. (coord.), 2002, Les patrons, l’Etat et la formation des jeunes, Paris, La Dispute ; Maillard F., 2013, « Les diplômes professionnels de l’Éducation nationale : entre professionnalisation et scolarisation ». Les Dossiers des sciences de l’éducation, n° 30, p. 35-52.
3 For example, Beaud S., 1996, « Les bac pro, la désouvriérisation du lycée professionnel », Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, n° 114, p 21-29 ; Beaud S. et Pialoux M., « Les bacs pros à l’université. Récits d’une impasse », 2001, Revue française de pédagogie, n° 136, p. 87-95 ; Eckert H. et Hillau B., 1993, « La diversification du niveau IV de formation, les paradoxes de la seconde chance », L’orientation scolaire et professionnelle, n°22, 2, p. 147-167 ; Eckert H., 1999, « L’émergence d’un ouvrier bachelier – Les « bac pro » entre déclassement et recomposition de la catégorie des ouvriers qualifiés », Revue française de sociologie, n°
XL-2, p. 227-253 ; Figeat M., 1996, Les baccalauréats professionnels : un espoir ou un leurre ?, INRP.
4 DEPP, Note d’information n° 06, mars 2014.
5 Ibidem
6 Intermediate between elementary school and secondary school, the college offers four years of training which conclude with the passage of the Diplôme National du Brevet (DNB). Student orientation is decided in the last year.
group to the level of the baccalaureate has finally been achieved. After a certain stagnation between 1994 and 2009, around 63%, the proportion of graduates in a generation has indeed reached 79 % in 2013, including all training pathways 7.
If the creation of this degree had attracted attention because of the ambiguity of its position in the education system and in the labor market, its new organization in three years has once again shone the spotlight on it, for reasons that are roughly similar :some social anxiety, even some tensions, when it was mapped with other « baccalauréats ». The progression of the « bac pro » in the field of degrees questions the status and definition of the baccalauréate, that has less and less to do with what it was before the two « school explosions » 8, just as the types of relationships that develop between secondary and higher education and between vocational training and employment. It also leads to question the issue of inequality in the education system : between educational pathways, public, educational specialties, diplomas that formal parity between « baccalauréats » tends to hide.
A new structuration of diplomas indicates the vocational pathway, whose vocation of further education is becoming more assertive. Although successive governments regularly call for better overlap between education and training in a company, and want to develop apprenticeship, the school form seems to have taken an increasing role in the organization of vocational training and education (VET) and in the curricula9, to encourage further studies.
Links have been established between CAP and « bac pro » curriculas, to ensure that CAP more directly contributes to higher levels of education, while it remains the only level V diploma under the Ministry of Education and it was revived as a degree of " a profession »10. If the schooling of this type of tracking is important from its beginning, its evolution nonetheless raises questions. These questions relate to its distinctive characteristics, its curricula shared between different teachings and objectives, its status within the education system, its relationship with the labor and employment ... and lead to questioning the educational policy, standards it lays down as the effects it produces. Such questions are even more significant now that all French diplomas are now supposed to be "vocational" including higher education.
Thus a double process seems to take place : while legitimizing the vocational pathway and the
« bac pro » are based on trivialization, even elimination, of their specific features, higher education is subjected to get closer to the productive system. The definition of the term
"vocational" appears therefore very broad. In addition, although the French model of the relationship between the education system and the production system appears adequate, developments of the vocational way lead to question this characterization. There is indeed a step between the arguments of reforms and their actual content.
7 DEPP, Repères et références statistiques, 2013.
8 This term refers to the substantial massification of education and training streams. France experienced two school explosions in the twentieth century : the first in the early 1960s, as a lot of other developed countries, a second in the early 1990s.
9 Gilles Moreau has highlighted the "school " evolution of learning: « Apprentissage, une singulière métamorphose », Formation-Emploi, n° 101, p. 119-133.
10 Cf Brucy G., Maillard F. et Moreau G., Le CAP, un diplôme du peuple (1911-2011), Rennes, PUR. Since the"renovation of the vocational pathway," initiated in late 2007
,
the BEP has become an "intermediate certification " and training curriculum has been deleted. Even if it does not play any role in the transition from one class to another, it must be passed by the young people enrolled in vocational baccalaureate, the objective of this measure is to reduce the number of students without a diploma.Organized on the occasion of the thirty year anniversary of the « bac pro », this multidisciplinary international conference wants to broaden the questions beyond the diploma and vocational pathway, even if they are the basic elements. It proposes four themes:
1 - The first issue concerns the « bac pro », its specialties and its curricula, its student public and apprentices, teachers. Like other degrees of the vocational pathway, the « bac pro » is a plural degree, which now includes hundreds of specialties. Being numerous, the inequalities between these specialties include the educational profile of young people who are guided here, their gender, social origin … but also the more or less close relations with their professional target. Professional specialties coexist therefore with cross disciplinary specialties. The opportunities for further education offered by the different « bac pros » also help to distinguish them. The professional background of teachers and the education they provide are also elements of differentiation. The contributions included in this part will strengthen the knowledge about this diploma and better define it. Proposals could also concern other professional qualifications of level IV, under the Ministry of Education (such as the Brevet professionnel) like other Ministries (for example those of Agriculture, Social Affairs and Health, Youth and Sports … also very active in the reform). Comparisons and considering the historical perspective would be helpful.
2 - The second issue talks about the position of the « bac pro » within the vocational pathway, compared to other professional degrees (CAP, brevet professionnel/BP), but also in the education area, compared to the general baccalaureate, technological baccalaureate and higher education diplomas. In addition to possible competition between degrees and between different tracks of training (apprenticeship and vocational school) this part will question more broadly the organization and hierarchy of educational tracks, as well as the links between vocational tracks 11, technological tracks and higher education. Research on education policy, numerous reforms and their effects, and how it considers juvenile socialization are expected.
Similarly, it would be necessary to analyze how these reforms are part of the project "lifelong learning" and what significant they have for training and certification of working people.
Contributions could also report the directions that promote the professional organizations that serve in advisory professional commissions. In addition, since responsability for vocational training was given to Regions, the regional and local dimension of policies implemented becomes central. For example, what are the choices made by the regions to organize vocational education and training for young people? How are apprenticeship and vocational education distributed knowing that apprenticeship is highly valued by governments that impose quantitative targets ? What developments have followed regional policies and what trends are emerging today?
Comparative clarification would be welcome, as the European recommendations on education, training and certification, are often mobilized to support educational reforms. For example, it might be interesting to consider the relationship between the creation of a vocational baccalaureate in France and the birth of professional maturity in Switzerland.
Contributions on the initiatives taken by the countries of the European Union to raise the level of education and skills of their population and limit the number of outgoing students without certification would enable to feed both knowledge and debates often very influenced by a national perspective.
11Which includes CAP, BEP, bac pro and BP with regard to the Ministry of Education and other diplomas from other ministries.
3 - The third topic invites us to reconsider the definition of terms of programs and degrees for insertion. How do the actors involved in the (re) construction of the theoretical and practical definition conceive this purpose and content, whether they are institutional leaders, social partners, teachers’ unions or teachers unions themselves 12 ? How did the leaders of schools meet the requirements of the last reform, and how did teachers apply them to asisst young people to pass « bac pro » in three years, previously accomplished in four years? What is the importance given to the BEP as an "intermediate degree" ? What are the possible combinations of employability and further education with the « bac pro »? If the possibility of further education has always been offered to vocational graduates, it was nevertheless not recommended in the early ages of the vocational baccalaureate, so as not to change the
"nature" of this degree. Today, it is strongly encouraged to continue education with a « bac pro », which produces some curriculum issues and organization of training time (which is also reported by the website of the Ministry of National Education, Eduscol in its pages dedicated to the professional pathway). How does the youth in vocational training and education appropriate these aspects at the time of orientation, during VET or after? What are their ways of appropriation ? Which "new" inequalities does the constant transformation of professional qualifications produce ? Can we identify a "French situation" which distinguishes these points from that of other countries ?
4 - The fourth issue is addressed to the future of students of « bac pro » and the patterns how diploma are recognized on the labor market. Described as "vague" ten years after the creation of the diploma13, did the field of qualification of the « bac pro » become more precise ? How have the relationship between the « bac pro » and employment evolved since the creation of the diploma, which is also the time of the launch of the so-called policy of " 80% at bac level
"? On which points do the trajectories of the holders of different degrees (from CAP to BTS) and different professional specialties differ ? Moreover, insofar as the preparation of track of the « bac pro » has changed and the BEP diploma is only a "intermediate" degree, it is likely that the reform of the vocational pathway has had some effect on the insertion of students on the labour market. Is it already possible to measure and / or perceive the trends? More generally, what are the values of exchange and use of professional degrees after thirty years of rising education levels and imposition of a certification standard?
Even though these questions are primarily on the « bac pro » and vocational tracks, it is more broadly a reflection on educational policy and its effects on vocational training and certification, about the socialization of youth and the relationship between degrees and employment that this international conference invites.
Steering Committee: Fabienne Maillard (Université Lille 3, Proféor-CIREL), Gilles Moreau (Université de Poitiers, GRESCO), Guy Brucy (Université de Picardie Jules Verne), Ugo Palheta (Université Lille 3, Proféor-CIREL), Xavier Sido (Université Lille 3, Théodile- CIREL), Stéphane Lembré (Université d’Artois, CREHS), Valérie Melin (Université Lille 3, Proféor-CIREL), Claire Desmitt (Université Lille 3, Proféor-CIREL).
12 This term includes here trainers
13 Campinos-Dubernet M., 1995, « Le baccalauréat professionnel : une innovation ? », Formation-Emploi, n°
49.
Scientific committee: Fabienne Maillard (Université Lille 3, Proféor-CIREL), Gilles Moreau (Université de Poitiers, GRESCO), Guy Brucy (Université de Picardie Jules Verne), Philipp Gonon (Université de Zurich), Lucie Tanguy (CNRS), Vincent Troger (Université de Nantes, CREN), Léna Krichewsky (Université Otto Von Guericke), Nicolas Divert (Université Paris Est, LIRTES), Prisca Kergoat (Université de Toulouse, CERTOP), Ugo Palheta (Université Lille 3, Proféor-CIREL), Chantal Labruyère (Céreq), Mona Granato (BIBB), Stéphane Balas (DGESCO-MEN), Marianne Thivend (Université Lyon 2, LARHA), Stéphane Bonnéry (Université Paris 8, ESCOL-CIRCEFT), Stéphane Lembré (Université d’Artois, CREHS), Séverine Chauvel (UPEC), Emmanuel Quenson (Université d’Évry, Centre Pierre Naville), Henri Eckert (Université de Poitiers, GRESCO).
Proposals of 4000 signs at most, should be sent by April 30, 2015 to fabienne.maillard@univ-lille3.fr
magico@wanadoo.fr
They must meet the following standards - Name, surname of the author(s)
- Institution(s) of affiliation - Mail address(es)
- Title of the proposed paper - Axis in which it operates
- Proposal Summary , 4 000 characters at most.
- Keywords
Languages : French or English
The authors of the proposals selected by the scientific commitee will be informed on 20 june 2015 at the latest
They will then send the full text of their paper (35 000 characters maximum) before 30 September 2015.
