Description
This study examines how family socioeconomic background and local socioeconomic context jointly shape educational performance in higher education in France. Using data from the 2020 Conditions de Vie (CdV) Survey conducted by the Observatoire de la Vie Étudiante (OVE), the analysis draws on a nationally representative sample of approximately 61,000 students, linked to commune-level indicators from the 2023 INSEE Census. Educational performance is measured using students’ percentage examination scores, rescaled to the (0,1) interval and modeled via multilevel beta regression with random intercepts at the commune level.Parental social class origin is operationalized using the French Catégories Socioprofessionnelles, harmonized into an ESeC-like class schema. Models sequentially introduce parental education (based on a dominance criterion), material and residential living conditions (housing density, living area, financial hardship, and travel constraints), and commune-level unemployment rates to test direct, mediating, and contextual effects. Cross-level interactions between parental social class and local unemployment rates are used to assess heterogeneous neighborhood effects.
Results show a strong and statistically significant association between parental social class and examination performance, which persists after controlling for parental education. Living-condition indicators substantially improve model fit and partially attenuate class gradients, indicating that material constraints mediate but do not eliminate socioeconomic disparities. Commune-level unemployment is negatively associated with student performance net of individual characteristics, confirming a contextual socioeconomic effect. Interaction models reveal marked class heterogeneity in neighborhood effects: students from highly advantaged class origins are insulated from local unemployment, consistent with compensatory advantage, while students from the lowest class origins show uniformly low performance irrespective of neighborhood conditions, reflecting compounded disadvantage. Neighborhood socioeconomic context matters most for students from middle-class backgrounds (intermediate occupations, petit bourgeoisie, and agricultural classes), for whom higher local unemployment significantly reduces educational performance.
These findings demonstrate that educational inequalities in French higher education are structured by both family social class and spatial context, with neighborhood disadvantage selectively amplifying inequalities among middle-class students rather than at the extremes of the class distribution.
| Period | 17 Jun 2025 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Inequalities and Opportunities: Insights into wealth, income and education disparities |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Bari, ItalyShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |