Academic achievement, tracking decisions, and their relative contribution to educational inequalities:Change over four decades in France

This chapter presents analyses of IEO in France for cohorts spanning 30 years, assesses inequalities related to both parental class and education, and comments on inequalities related to gender and ethnicity. In France, upper-class families' demand for the two components of the academic track of higher education, university and classes préparatoires, has dramatically changed over time. In the course of pupils' educational careers, secondary effects generally increase relative to primary effects. There is a clear historical rise in the share of the primary effects of social stratification in creating educational differentials