Whilst both extending and then distancing herself from the sociologists Pierre Bourdieu and Paul Willis, Géraldine André reconnects with a tradition which had become a little lost in the sociology of education over the course of transformations within the educational system: the analysis of social classes. For her the cultural references of the working classes more than ever fashions the choices made by the teenagers. As much as the family sphere, which enables an understanding of why an individual adopts an attitude of resistance, openness, conformity or accommodation as regards the school.

But the youth do not only appropriate the elements which they have received as an inheritance, they re-appropriate them, and they carry out ‘symbolic bricolage.’ ‘One anecdote in particular struck me,’ says the researcher. ‘I had asked the boys what type of girl they liked. They replied, ‘the casual sports style.’ I was surprised, and I didn’t understand. To my mind it wasn’t very positive. When they showed me girls who had this style, I understood that they were reversing the hierarchy of tastes. What is perceived as lacking taste by certain social groups on the other hand had in reality meaning for others.’

Behind the scenes of Board of Studies

But because it would ‘be far too simple to restrict ourselves to stating that the young pupils choose their orientation,’ Géraldine André, in the second part of her book, looked into the role of the school authorities by following for several months their various Board of Studies meetings and giving a voice to the teachers of three institutions.

Three widely different institutions, the first boasting a pretty elitist brand image, the second with a good reputation but which had been stagnating a little, whilst the third (the only one to offer on the same site general, technical and vocational programmes) has the profile of a school undergoing complete transformation, welcoming more and more pupils from the working classes.

On site the anthropologist observed very different types of behaviour. Whilst the first establishment, on the strength of its significant economic and social capital, seems to have put into place an implicit strategy to separate ‘virtuous’ pupils from those considered as ‘un-virtuous’ without particularly troubling itself about the consequences of these reorientation decisions for the pupils, things seem a lot less settled within the two other institutions.

‘I was very surprised to observe that, contrary to what the public policies have to say about it, the teachers in reality ask themselves many questions. Their ideological representations, specific to the middle classes, push them to consider that it is necessary to stay in the general programme for as long as possible. They thus try to hand out an AOB as late as possible. For them, having to make decisions on orientations raises moral problems. It’s a really dirty job.’