L’enseignement juridique comme socialisation à une élite économique  ? Le cas de l’École centrale de Paris

The “École Centrale of Paris” has established itself, over the past two centuries, as a leader in educating the private-sector executives. This “grande école” has progressively reform its educational system so as to adapt its pedagogy to what is seen as the “market’s constraints”. One of the most visible effects of its new educational programs, as regards the curriculum, is the relative reduction of technical and scientific teachings and the increase of knowledge management and leadership development courses. The study of the transformation of legal education during the last century appears particularly relevant for understanding the ECP’s successive views concerning elite education. From law serving the “honnête homme” to law as a “business science”, the examination of legal education at the ECP allows us to understand how the legitimate competences are defined and distributed so as to provide access to positions of power. This is precisely the strategic contemporary role played by legal knowledge in accessing to elites that this paper aims to enlighten, concentrating on how knowledge is transmitted, creates “common sensé” and socializes students with an economic elite