'Disaffection' for science studies: paradoxes of the French case

Bernard Convert (1)

1 CLERSÉ - Centre Lillois d’Études et de Recherches Sociologiques et Économiques - UMR 8019

Young people's disaffection for science studies is a phenomenon common to many industrialized countries. It is too readily attributed to young people's presumed image of science. In the French case it would be more accurate to attribute this phenomenon to socio-demographic causes. The fact that there is no simple connection between choice of higher education study path and disciplinary content is shown by a striking paradox: higher education enrolment in Physics-Chemistry began failing sharply in France at precisely the moment a Physics-Chemistry concentration was introduced at the lycee [high school] level. The explanation proposed here pertains to the French disciplinary hierarchy. For many lycee students, the choice of physics-chemistry rather than mathematics is associated with lower scholastic ambition, this in turn associated with lower scholastic performance and/or more modest social background. This observation is generalizable. One of the causes of disaffection for science studies in France is the increasingly less distinguishing character of lycee science studies. Over the last fifteen years and particularly since 1995, steadily increasing numbers of female lycee students, "average" students, and students of modest social background have chosen to obtain a science-concentration baccalaureat [lycee leaving examination and degree]. With all else kept equal, students in each of these categories, for reasons specific to it, are also less likely to opt for long higher education science studies.

Mots clés: disaffection; paradoxes; French case

Domaines: Sociologie

Bernard Convert. 'Disaffection' for science studies: paradoxes of the French case. Revue française de sociologie, 2005, 46 (supplément), pp.59-77. ⟨10.3917/rfs.465.0059⟩. ⟨halshs-00198947⟩