Cheminements scolaires du secondaire V à l’université : Essai d’analyse de la structure du champ décisionnel

Abstract

Refusing to consider personal behavior as the mere product of social structures, this article raises the following dilemma: how can the global function of social reproduction in the school system be ascertained by the aggregation of individual educational strategies, and the converse? This longitudinal analysis of schooling paths in the Quebec French public school sector is based both on the essentiality of the school system concept and the assumption of the actor’s rationality. The results show that by giving back a real status to the actor, various processes of selection which become obscured by a deterministic and mechanistic view can then be observed.