Schooling Immigrants in France in the 1990s: Success or Failure of the Republican Model of Integration?

Abstract

The perception and treatment of immigrants in French society have been strongly influenced by an ideology of integration known as the Republican model, a model that relies on state institutions and particularly on schools for its transmission. Analysis of the schooling of immigrants in the 1990s reveals that the enforcement of this model is still producing the desired manifestations of cultural assimilation, but that it has become much less effective in promoting the social and economic integration of immigrant groups. As a result, competing alternative models, especially neoliberal ones, might progressively play a central role.