Some French Initiatives in Educating the Socially and Culturally Disadvantaged. Recent Educational Policy and Legislative Developments Abroad.

This report on some efforts being made in France to improve the education of the socially and culturally disadvantaged is presented for such value as it may have to American educational planners in their search for solution to this difficult problem. For the purposes of this study the term "socially and culturally handicapped or disadvantaged" is understood to include those social or cultural factors that cause a child to enter "the school system with knowledge, skills, and attitudes which impede learning and contribut to a cumulative academic deficit." In France, the vast majority of young people with learning problems are the children of poor farmers, factory workers, North Africans, and migrant workers. Their disadvantage often persists throughout school life and may contribute to restricting later economic and social opportunities. The present study will leave to specialists in political science, economics, and sociology and analysis of the fundamental causes of the very important social dynamics. It will, for its part, concentrate on the pedagogical approaches to the problem of the education of socially and culturally disadvantaged children now being attempted by the French Ministry of National Education. However, the problem, as defined here, obviously requires a solution far broader than a restructuring of educational systems. It raises fundamental questions about a nation's self-image, its goals, its concept of the nature and destiny of man in society, and its responsibility toward its citizens. (Author/JM)