Social origins and educational success in France

The central question of this study is to determine what role different char acteristics of social origin play in educational achievement in France and to what extent educational inequality has changed in the course of the twen tieth century. Within the context of the discussion of (in)equality in educ ational opportunity, the French educational system is a very interesting ca se: it is committed to the republican tenet of equality, from which both th e principles of equal opportunity and the selection of a meritocracy are de rived as guidelines for education policy. The empirical investigation is ba sed on a secondary analysis of the survey "Formation-Qualification-Professi onnelle conducted by the French Office of Statistics. The results show that educational achievement in France depends to a significant degree on condi tions of social origin. Contrary to the findings of the Shavit/Blossfeld pr oject (1993), this paper shows that even though there has been some reducti on in inequality due to social origin in participation rates for the hierar chical qualification levels in the French educational system, a more differ entiated look at a variety of more or less prestigious educational pathways reveals that access to the most prestigious educational certificates conti nues to depend on social origin to an unchanging degree.