LONDON, 19thOctober, 2012 LLAKES Conference

1. LONDON, 19thOctober, 2012LLAKES Conference Education and social cohesion in comparative perspective Prof. Marie Duru-Bellat (Sciences-Po and IREDU, FRANCE)

2. A comparative survey on 27 oecd countries • Australia Austria Belgium Canada Czech Rep. Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Japan Korea Luxembourg Netherlands New-Zeland Norway Poland Portugal Slovak Rep. Spain Sweden Switzerland United-Kingdom United-States • Data : OECD, World Values Surveys

3. Defining social cohesion A set of social values that serves as the foundation of solidarity in modern societies. Twocorrelated dimensions : • -social capital • -trust and tolerance. A global indicator (inevitablysomewhatarbitrary)…

4. The socio-economic correlates of social cohesion (SC) SC correlates (+) with the country wealth and the dynamics of the labormarket and (-) withinequalities of income (Gini) All together, thesesocioeconomicfactorsaccount to a significantdegree (67%) for social cohesion.

5. Characterizing the educational systems Three dimensions : • Educationalintegration : level of school attendanceatuppersecondarylevel (OECD’S data) and level of attainment at 15 (Pisa data) ; • Educational inequalities (Pisa data). • Educational cohesion : a variety of pupils’ judgments about school(Pisa data).

6. Social cohesion and educational variables Educational integration linked (+) with SC, No significant link with educational inequalities, A (positively, more moderate) link with educational cohesion. All together, these educ, characteristics account for 25% of the variance of SC.

7. Economic returns of education and Social cohesion Conclusion : A weak impact of Education on SC? Or the mediation of the social and economic value given to degrees? To test this hypothesis… The « impact » (or « emprise ») variable: aggregating the employment rate and wages of individuals with higher educ.graduates vs below upper secondary’ones.

8. The impact of diploma on the job market and social cohesion

9. A tension between individuals benefits and SC/country level? An « ecological paradox »: the effects of education on SC may differ at the individual and country levels : positive effects for individuals (at least for the « winners »), not always positive effects for society…). A strong impact of degrees increases the sense of exclusion of the least qualified and boost competition and inequalities within school.

10. The impact of diploma and educational inequalities

11. Judgments on inequalities and SCJ

12. Social Cohesion and socio-economic and educ.factors

13. Main results The dynamics of the labor market remains the most important parameter,and the negative impact of income inequalities is still observed. The impact of these socioeconomic characteristics combines with the impact of two characteristics of educational systems: educational integration and cohesion. So, the level of social cohesion may vary specifically according to the educational climate (especially the quality of peer relations and student-teacher relations).

14. However, the impact of diploma matters… .The high level of competitiveness fostered by high returns of degrees may counteract the impact of a good climate. .Converging with Green et al. (2006)’ results: the impact of education on SC depends on the socialization achieved (here, educational cohesion) and on its relations with employment (here, the returns of education). .This needs to be nested within a wider context determined by the dynamics of the labor market and the level of inequalities, but also by historical and political factors not explicitly incorporated into the framework of this study.

15. Discussion Some important weaknesses of thisstudy: the limits of all cross-sectionalstudies; impossible to establishfirmlyany causal relationships. Impossible to trulydissociate the part played by the different variables (a classicalproblem in comparative studies). A currenttrap of benchmarking… Thankyou!