Boarding Schools for Secondary Students from Disadvantaged Backgrounds in France (Internats d'Excellence)PDF version
The resources which are available to students, including financial and human resources such as tutoring, supportive teachers, and a positive learning environment, are thought to influence their success at school and later in life. In an effort to improve the educational opportunities available to underprivileged children, many programs, such as “Head Start” in the United States, have tried to improve educational resources in poorer areas. This concentration of public resources in underprivileged schools has the potential to minimize the gap in social and educational opportunities between rich and poor families, but the full effect of this kind of policy has not been rigorously tested in all contexts.
France has recently implemented several programs and policies that seek to increase the resources available to underprivileged middle- and high-school students. Among these is the “Boarding Schools of Excellence” project, which gives additional financial and human resources to boarding schools which serve qualified but underprivileged students. Students who were selected for treatment in this evaluation attended boarding schools outside of Paris- one in Sourdun and one in Cachan. Both of these schools are run by the school district of Creteil, and were newly established in 2009.
At the end of the school year, students interested in the program were asked to fill out an application for acceptance at one of the boarding schools.
In each year several hundred student applied, of whom between 45-75 percent were selected as being both qualified to enter the boarding school and from a disadvantaged background. Of these qualified students, approximately 60 percent were randomly selected to enroll the following year, allowing for comparison between qualified students who were randomly selected for admittance and qualified students who weren’t.
Students in the treatment group in both years were eligible to enroll in Boarding Schools of Excellence, located in Sourdun and Cachan, outside of Paris. These schools were operated by the School District of Créteil with financial support from the French Ministry of Education. Researchers collected data on the cognitive and non-cognitive impacts of attending boarding schools through a series of tests for the target population, as well as gathering information on possible spillover effects to siblings through phone interviews.
Results forthcoming.
