The president of the departmental council of Haute-Garonne, Georges Méric – at the origin of the local system of school diversity -, the rector of the Toulouse academy Mostafa Fourrar, the director of academic services Mathieu Sieye opened on Tuesday, February 15 , the National meetings of social diversity at school in the Republic pavilion of the Hôtel du département in Toulouse.

Two days, Tuesday February 15 and Wednesday February 16, supported by the National Center for the Study of School Systems (Cnesco) and the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts (Cnam), in essence to “capitalize and enhance experiences”.

Several dozen teaching professionals (teachers, directors, facilitators, students, doctoral students, principals, principals, etc.) took part in several workshops and round tables over two days. Since 2017, the Department has acted as a pioneer by installing its social mix system in colleges. In practice, this resulted in the sectorization of ten schools in the Mirail district within the perimeter of eleven so-called “favoured” colleges in Toulouse and in the metropolis.

Over a thousand Mirail students

That is more than a thousand young people from priority neighborhoods of the city, who take public transport to go to establishments in the city center, after the closure of the Raymond Badiou college (Reynerie) and this year that of Bellefontaine. In the process, the Department is opening two new colleges in the sector in 2022, Saint-Simon and Guilhermy.

A way like any other to ask a central question in the definition of social diversity at school, mentioned on Tuesday, February 15, by Choukri Ben Ayed, professor of sociology at the University of Limoges and co-director of GRESCO (Research Group sociology on contemporary societies). That of a “deconstruction”.

“He demonstrated, he explains, that school segregation was not just a reflection of urban segregation”. The sociologist recognizes the former President of the Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, for having made social diversity at school “a campaign theme” during the 2012 presidential election.
Will follow, under the presidency of François Hollande, the law of refoundation of the school of 2013 which is registered in the social mix as “an objective to be achieved”.

Local experiences show, in any case, a desire to tackle the problem head-on. Seven years, similar policies have been implemented since u almost everywhere in France, Nancy, Nantes, Nîmes, Paris, Strasbourg, soon in Lille and Lyon. In Toulouse, the department’s experiment was the subject of an evaluation report.

Isabelle Bertolino, doctoral student and co-author of the evaluation report of the social mix system

Isabelle Bertolino, doctoral student in education and training sciences, attached to the University of Toulouse 2 Jean Jaurès, is co-author of the evaluation report of the “plan to improve social diversity in Haut-Garonne colleges” experienced since 2017 by the departmental council of Haute-Garonne. Interview.

You are the author, with two other academics and a student, of the evaluation report of the “plan to improve social diversity in upper-Garonne colleges?

We responded to an order from the Haute-Garonne departmental council and we carried out this evaluation in partnership with all the partners (national education, associations, parents of students, Caf, city, metropolis, region). We did not analyze things in a strictly scientific way, we are more in the internal evaluation. Based on the experience that the actors have of this system.

How long to complete this report?

It took two years, with sixty participants. We couldn’t do everything because of the Covid, we still have a lot of unused data.

What are the results of social diversity on the schooling of the pupils concerned?

We mainly worked on the dynamics of student socialization. Our conclusions are that social diversity is in fact an adult problem. Not a student issue. The observed socialization dynamics are the same in mixed colleges. We are on the exploratory stage, it is a new situation. Very clearly, the pupils are in a natural social mobility specific to this phase of their development. We offer them a diversified context and they benefit from it with all the relevance we have at that age, when we are curious and have far fewer prejudices and stereotypes than adults. They do not have to integrate since they arrive in 6th grade and all students must integrate when arriving in 6th grade. It’s a real challenge for all students, not just those at Mirail.

Does social diversity have flaws?

The pupils all have multiple groups to which they belong, but there is only one non-mixed gender at school that is obvious: it is the non-mixed gender of girls and boys, all social classes combined. The student-girl group is often ordered to the student-boy group, that’s clear.