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La polarisation sociale s'accroit

French Universities – A Melting Pot or a Hotbed of Social Segregation? A Measure of Polarisation within the French University System (2007-2015)

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by Romain Avouac and Hugo Harari-Kermadec in Economics and statistics, n°528-529, 2021.

Abstract: Despite changes recently introduced within higher education (cluster building policies, the influence of university rankings, etc.) which may have fueled fears of a disparity between a pocket of world class universities and a vast group of second tier universities, relatively few quantitative studies exist to examine this matter. Using data from the Système d’information sur le suivi de l’étudiant (SISE), an information system for monitoring students university enrolments in France, we provide an exhaustive overview of the university landscape taking into account the capital held by various student populations. We then apply measures of segregation and polarisation to analyse the change in heterogeneity, which increased between 2007 and 2015. Lastly, we link this polarisation to the measures implemented at domestic and international level (Initiatives d’Excellence in France, and university rankings globally) which shape the foundations for globalisation among universities since the mid 2000s.

Full paper on open access at Economics and statistics

Epog + Education economics

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Material and information about 2023-2024 Education economics lecture of EPOG+ Master 2, given by Hugo Harari-Kermadec. Syllabus

Lecture slides:

Previous years’ lectures

Students’ presentations: fill the framapad no more than 30 min presentation + 15 min discussion

Possible topics: Student allowance, tuition fees, inequalities, marketisation, pedagogy (Freire, hooks), national case studies… some references. Any suggestions are welcome.

  • October 5: UN benchmark for acheiving realistics human rights standards (De Souza, Rangel, Dumortier)
  • October 12: Digital education (Evite, Herbillon), gendered educational persistence (Pernegger, Pavicevic, Avci), Approaches to Analyzing the Outcomes of International Scholarship Programs for Higher Education (Tashmatova, Lubwa + DF)
  • October 19: gender disparities (Janssen, Zaffari, Andrade), Examining the existing opportunity gaps in European Higher Education systems (Monin, Makohin)
  • October 26: Inequalities among education in Latin America (Bendezu, Jiménez, Trejo), Inequalities in India (Handa, Rossetti, Stock), bell hooks for EPOG (Fuinhas, Van Noord, Schnars)

Evaluation: each group of student produces a written report, mainly a transcription of your oral presentation. The report is a short (6-10 pages for pairs, 8-14 for groups of 3), structured document, and can include images, tables or graphs used in the presentation, correctly referenced.

Deadline: November 13.

Second grade for students with double ECTS: write a policy brief about education economics (on your own, or with ione or two co-autors):

  • US universities coming crisis
  • What happens to Erasmus mundus masters after the end of EU funding?
  • …

The Direct Subordination of Universities to the Accumulation of Capital.

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Cecilia Rikap and Hugo Harari-Kermadec for Capital and Class, in Press.

Universities have historically contributed tothe reproduction of capitalism. However, they have been historically conceivedas a separate sphere or institution detached from the Market, thus onlyindirect participants of capital’s accumulation processes. Our aim in thisarticle is precisely to contribute to acknowledge this transformation byfurther developing a theoretical explanation integrated to a Marxist analysisof contemporary capitalism. In particular, following Levín (1997), we distinguish thata portion of world’s social capital has monopolized the capacity to plan andprofit from innovation. The wide gap in terms of innovation capacities betweenindividual capitals leaves those non-innovative with no better option but to subordinateand let go part of their surplus. It is in this context that we will suggestthat universities integrate to direct capital’s accumulation structures. To doso, we will conceptually distinguish between two sides of universities’ transformation:1) the adoption of capital enterprises’ characteristics resulting in exchangesof their products (teaching and research results), where we will identify differentdegrees of bargaining power to decide the conditions of those exchanges, and 2)the transformation of academic labor, adapting itself to capitalist productionprocesses. Considering the former, we argue that universities’ adoption ofindividual capitals’ features can be better understood as a differentiatedprocess. We suggest three types of differentiated market-university, accordingto the different enterprises in Levín’s (1997) typology. Ourconcluding remarks include further research questions and nuance the generaltransformation of the University as an economic actor offering some clues fordeveloping countertendencies.

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Globalizations of Higher Education and Research

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International workshop, May 29-30, 2018, University Paris Descartes
salle des conférences (R229), 2nd floor, 45 rue des Saints Pères, Paris

Inscriptions are free but mandatory: follow this link and click on “s’inscrire”.

Presentation: If knowledge’s production and transmission have always been international, the extension and intensity of this phenomena seems to have gone one step further over the last twenty years. Initiatives of diverse natures, from the European Bologna Process to the “Shanghai ranking” have played their part in the simplification of students’ mobility. Global corporation’s sponsorship and partnership with academic research have integrated universities to global innovation circuits. New countries and new universities appear as important actors at the global scale, and national systems of higher education suffer greater internal polarization processes. Even if these changes do not mainly translate directly into universities’ privatization, in this global university, knowledge is increasingly exchanged as a commodity.

Présentation: Une nouvelle étape dans l’internationalisation de l’enseignement supérieur et de la recherche semble avoir été franchie depuis la fin des années 1990. De Bologne à Shanghai, la mobilité étudiant a pris une nouvelle dimension. Une carte globale de l’université émerge, avec de nouveaux acteurs, publics comme privés, alors que les systèmes nationaux subissent des processus de polarisation. Si les privatisations des établissements sont rarement à l’ordre du jour, le savoir se produit et s’échange de plus en plus comme une marchandise. Ces deux journées ont pour objet de discuter ces tendances à partir de résultats de recherche et de l’expérience d’acteurs impliqués dans la globalisation universitaire. Les échanges auront lieu en anglais. Une traduction simultanée français-anglais sera mise en œuvre le 29 mai.

 

Program:

  • Organization committee: Cecila Rikap, Hugo Harari-Kermadec, Etienne Gerard, Nolwen Henaff,  David Flacher, Lama Kabbanji, Virginie Fonteneau, Hélène Gispert, Léonard Moulin & Leïla Frouillou

    The workshop is organised by ACIDES and CEPED (IRD & Paris Descartes) and supported by IFRIS (Institut Francilien Recherche Innovation Société) and MSH Paris Saclay.

     

     

Globalization of students and scholars’ mobility / Globalisation des mobilités étudiantes et scientifiques

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Second roundtable of the international workshop, Globalizations of Higher Education and Research, May 29-30, 2018, University Paris 5 Descartes

May 29, 14:30 – 18:00 

Chair : Etienne Gerard, CEPED – IRD & Lama Kabbanji, CEPED – IRD
Participants :

  • Loan Dinh Thi Bich, Institut vietnamien des sciences de l’éducation
  • Leïla Frouillou, CRESPPA – Université Paris Nanterre
  • Aldo Geuna, University of Torino – Collegio Carlo Alberto
  • Nolwen Henaff, CEPED – IRD
  • Antoniona Levatino, UAB – INED
  • Sylvie Mazzella, LAMES – CNRS
  • Léonard Moulin, INED
  • Pierre Moulinier, GERME – SciencesPo
  • Sorana Toma, ENSAE-CREST & Ined

Résumé : Cette table ronde propose de repenser les mobilités étudiantes et scientifiques contemporaines à l’aune de deux dynamiques

  • L’intérêt croissant de certains pays de destination d’attirer des étudiants et des scientifiques étrangers dans le contexte actuel de la globalisation
  • Les reconfigurations des conditions structurelles dans les pays d’origine des étudiants/scientifiques mobiles (augmentation de l’offre de formation supérieure, programmes transnationaux, développement de nouveaux pôles de formation, changements dans les caractéristiques du marché du travail hautement qualifié…)

Elites’ mobility is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, during the last decades of the XIX century, several universities proposed scholarships to some of their students to do their thesis abroad. Private foundations also favored these initiatives, a phenomenon that grew in the inter-war period. At a glance, looking into certain disciplines, their circulations and promoters today, contributes to better understand the evolution of university’s landscape and the appeal that is at stake in Europe and the United States in this period.

This round table aims at analysing contemporary student and scientific mobilities in the light of two dynamics:

  • The attractiveness of certain destination countries for foreign students and academics in the current context of globalization
  • Reconfiguration of the structural conditions in the countries of origin of mobile students / academics (increase in the supply of higher education, transnational programs, development of new training centers, changes in the characteristics of the highly skilled market, etc.)

The effects of world rankings, accreditation and evaluation: status, excellence and polarization.

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Third roundtable of the international workshop, Globalizations of Higher Education and Research, May 29-30, 2018, University Paris 5 Descartes

May 30, 9:30 – 13:00

Rankings and other instruments used for evaluating higher education and research produce a quantitative representation of university. This fuels a cognitive map adapted for consumers of higher education – and for their lenders – as well as for investors. We’ll also address its effect on academics work and management. Finally, the proximity between the normalization necessary to produce quantitative representations and the abstraction typical of commodity-fetishism will be discussed.

Participants:

  • Corine Eyraud, Université d’Aix-Marseille
  • Hugo Harari-Kermadec, IDHES – ENS Paris-Saclay
  • Judith Naidorf, Universidad de Buenos Aires
  • Catherine Paradeise, LISIS – Université de Marne-la-Vallée & IFRIS

National and institutional strategies in a globalized environment : Hubs, World Class Universities and Academic Capitalism

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Fourth roundtable of the international workshop, Globalizations of Higher Education and Research, May 29-30, 2018, University Paris 5 Descartes

May 30, 14:30 – 18:00 

According to countries and regions’ history and institutional context, the globalization of Higher Education and Research (HER) shows different impacts in terms of international competition and collaboration strategies as well as defining winners (that position themselves as global HER hubs or poles of attraction of students, faculty and resources) and losers (such as countries suffering from students and researchers brain drain) of this process. In this session we thus want to focus on the distinctive mechanisms that were put in place in order to produce different regimes of HER at both an institutional and a country level. We will also discuss about imitation or mimicking possibilities between different countries and institutions as well as about the consequences of a combined and uneven internationalization of HER.

Participants:

  • David Flacher, Université de Technologie de Compiègne, COSTECH, IFRIS
  • Yann Lebeau, University of East Anglia
  • Pierre Mounier-Khun, CAK – EHESS
  • Cecilia Rikap CEPED – IRD & IFRIS
  • Barrett Taylor, University of North Texas

The effects of the globalization of higher education and research: stakeholders’ perspectives

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First roundtable of the international workshop, Globalization of Higher Education and Research, May 29-30, 2018, University Paris 5 Descartes

May 29, 10:30 – 13:00 

Participants:

  • Jana Bacevic,  University and College Union, Cambridge
  • Dieter Lenzen, President of the University of Hamburg
  • Patricia Pol, Former Bologna advisor of the French government
  • Danielle Tartakowsky, former President of the University Paris 8 Saint-Denis

Students and scholars’ mobility, global rankings, accreditation, evaluation, pressures to become world class universities and academic enterprise are just some of the challenges that higher education institutions are facing in our globalized context. How are universities coping with these –sometimes even contradictory- pressures? What different strategies towards globalization have been pursued? Are strategies alike in the north (center) and the south (periphery)? Discussing with the actual decision makers we expect will contribute to shed light on these and other debates.

Academic capitalism developments

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January 16th 2018, 18h30 at ENS Paris Saclay, Amphi Curie by Sheila Slaughter, Institute of higher education, University of Georgia.

Slides

Sheila Slaughter is the author of Academic capitalism and the New Economy: Markets, State and Higher Education with Gary Rhoades. She investigates the relationship between knowledge and power as it plays out in higher education policy at the state, federal, and global levels.

Transatlantic moves to the market. The US and the EU

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January 15th 2018, MSH Paris Nord (M° Front Populaire) 9h, Auditorium, by Sheila Slaughter, Institute of higher education, University of Georgia.

Slides

Sheila Slaughter is the author of Academic capitalism and the New Economy: Markets, State and Higher Education with Gary Rhoades. She investigates the relationship between knowledge and power as it plays out in higher education policy at the state, federal, and global levels.

Universities’ direct subordination to capital’s accumulation

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Séminaire ACIDES du 16 janvier 2018, Cecilia Rikap (Université de Buenos Aires et IFRIS) et Hugo Harari-Kermadec (IDHES, ENS Cachan)

Présentation – slides

It was not until recently that universities became direct participants of capital’s accumulation processes, even if they had historically contributed to the reproduction of capitalism. Our aim in this article is precisely to contribute to acknowledge this transformation by further developing a theoretical explanation integrated to a Marxist analysis of today capitalism. In particular, following Levín (1997), we distinguish that a portion of world’s social capital has monopolized the capacity to plan and profit from innovation. The wide gap between capitals’ innovation capacity leaves those non-innovative with no other option but to accept being dominated and planned. It is in this context that we will suggest that universities’ integrate to direct capital’s accumulation structures. To do so, we will conceptually distinguish two successive transformations of universities: 1) the internal transformation of academic labor, adapting itself towards capitalist production processes, and 2) their adoption of capital enterprises’ characteristics resulting in exchanges of their products (teaching and research results), including the different bargaining power they have to decide the conditions of those exchanges. Considering the latter, we argue that universities’ adoption of capital enterprises’ characteristics can be better understood as a differentiated process. We suggest three types of differentiated market-university, according to the different capital enterprises in Levín’s (1997) typology. Our concluding remarks refer to a further research and political agenda triggered by the general framework developed throughout the article.

Commodity Fetishism at the University

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Elsa Boulet (University Paris IV and ENS Cachan) and Hugo Harari-Kermadec, IDHES – ENS Cachan and CEPN, Historical Materialism Conference, November 2013, London.

We study the ongoing marketisation of higher education in Europe, using the case study of an English university as an illustration. We use the concept of fetishism to focus on the transformation of the substance of higher education through the process of commodification. First, the ongoing reforms modify the production process in the universities through governance arrangements (norms, quality certification, rating, ranking, etc.) and other forms of the new spirit of capitalism (Boltanski and Chiapello 1999). These transformations have an ideological twin: specificities of science ideology must be removed or at least subordinated to the budget logic. A central moment of these two faces of the abstraction process is an operation of quantification (Desrosières 2008a, 2008b), which renders different activities commensurate, and turns differences in nature into magnitudes (Espeland and Stevens 1998). The final step of this abstraction process is the actual selling of teaching and research through tuition fees and patents or innovation consultancy. We conclude on the subjectivity of the resulting academics, producers of the knowledge commodity. Continuer la lecture →