1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«The purpose of this article is to show that the persistence of unequal access to higher education in Quebec is dependent on public education policies via the structure of the education market.» (p. 19)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«The analysis [is] based on data from the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS) derived from a 10-year follow-up of a cohort of students from the age of 16 to 26. Conducted jointly by Statistics Canada and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC), this survey is an extension of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) conducted in 2000 by the OECD with 15-year-old students in 1999. In Canada, the PISA sample consisted of 29,687 students enrolled in 2000, of whom 4,450 were in the province of Quebec.» (p. 21)

Instruments :
Questionnaires

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

Concerning the influence of the family environment, the author mentions in particular that «the influence of social origin (parental socioeconomic status) varies according to the type of institution attended and vice versa. The fact that private school students globally access higher education […] in a relatively higher proportion than their peers in the enriched public stream […] is thus partly due to differences in social origin. The first group comes, more often, from wealthy families. For example, a further analysis shows that 50% of those who attended a private high school have at least one parent with a university degree while it is 29% and 14% for those who respectively attended enriched and regular curriculum in public school.» (p. 22) Furthermore, «[i]n a context of equal opportunities, supported by the free and compulsory nature of primary and secondary education, the education market serves as an instrument of segregation that allows middle and upperclass families to preserve their privileges.» (p. 24)