Les dimensions spatiales de la scolarisation, entre espaces prescrits et parcours choisis

The compulsory schooling imposed by the “Troisième République” has had its own basis on local primary schools till the beginning of the sixties. Since then, the massiveness of secondary school and the widening of the access to the “baccalauréat” degree were partly supported by the system of spatial sectorisation or repartition called “carte scolaire”. Decentralisation laws and the development of priority politics, “priority schooling’’ and local politics could have led to a territorialisation of schooling politics. On the ground, one can observe that constraints and preconisations made these politics effect only a small proportion of the population. By-pass and avoidance strategies developed by families reveal that their effectiveness is only a matter for the least favoured groups but also that territorialisation rules are elaborated outside the concerned areas. What is more, territories thus delimited are beyond common law - its population is left aside and the affirmation action in favour of education does not reduce the negative social effects