Educational Homogeneity in French Primary Education: a double case study

This paper reports evidence from an ethnographic study of two primary schools in a large town in Northern France. The schools are located in markedly different socio‐economic settings. One is in an affluent area near the centre while the other is situated on a run down municipal housing estate on the outskirts in an officially designated educational priority zone. Despite their widely divergent social situations the two schools are strikingly similar and can be seen to be providing homogeneous educational experience for two socially heterogeneous populations. In the second half of the paper the notion of ‘national context’ is explored and its usefulness as an explanatory theoretical concept for analysing this educational homogeneity is suggested.