Manon Ratel's thesis defense

Ms Manon Ratel defended her thesis "Gouvernance territoriale du système scolaire. Contribution à l'étude d'un dispositif de sectorisation" on Friday November 19, 2021 at 1:00 pm.

Résumé : How does the governance of the school system operate at local level? This thesis is based on the trajectory of a school sectorization scheme in order to understand the change in local public action. Based on an in-depth empirical investigation and a multi-level strategic analysis, I reveal the complexity of the network of actors, and the tangle of competencies surrounding the school system in the territorial political-administrative organization. This instrumental and experimental approach opens up analytical perspectives situated at the intersection of heterogeneous issues (educational, political, social, urban, security-related, etc.) that have come to refract in the trajectory of the system. I show how a series of instruments, public and private actors, ideas, values and practices shape and guide public action.

This research sheds light on the decision to close a segregated middle school, and the reassignment of its students to other sectors, in the name of diversity. It is positioned as a contribution to the study of implementation and change in public policy. Tracing the trajectory of the sectorization mechanism is tantamount to contributing to the study of state governance through the prism of the political and social activity of a territory. Among other things, it shows that territorial governance of the school system is a routinized, discontinuous process, in which the level of involvement by actors depends more or less directly on the quality of the opportunities that arise to seize it. This thesis shows the process of governance of an uncertain political project, urban change, the governance of bodies, budgets and values, but also security, in the school system.

Keywords : governance - social inequalities - territory - educational public policy - system

Jury members:

• Anne BARRÈRE, Professor, Université Paris Descartes (examiner)
• Renaud EPSTEIN, Professor, Science Po Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Chairman)
• Patrick LE GALÈS, Professor, Science Po Paris (rapporteur)
• Jean-Paul PAYET, Professor, University of Geneva (examiner)
• Gilles PINSON, Professor, Science Po Bordeaux (rapporteur)
• Geneviève ZOïA, Professor, University of Montpellier (director)