The author studied the files of 270,00 students from ten of the most prestigious schools (ENA, ENS Ulm, ESPCI Paris, École Polytechnique, École des Ponts et Chaussées, Télécom Paris, Mines Paris, ESSEC, ESCP and Sciences Po Paris), between 1911 and 2015.
1 in 500 people in France of aristocratic origin, 1/50 in the Grandes Écoles
To identify students of noble ancestry, he relied on particle names in school registers, and on the list of the French Nobility Mutual Aid Association (ANF), which ensures “the authentication of true nobility”.
According to his conclusions, students of aristocratic origin who entered these grandes écoles between 1990 and 2015 – born between 1971 and 1995 – had between six and nine times more likely to integrate these major schoolscompared to eleven to fifteen times at the start of the 20th century.
At the start of the 2010s, around one in 500 people in the French population was of aristocratic origin, while one in 50 students at these schools were, according to his estimates.
“These results show that, despite the abolition of historical aristocratic privileges, inequalities between families of noble and commoner ancestry have not disappeared,” underlines the study entitled “noble ancestry and inequalities access to major schools.”
“Strategy for the preservation of social status”
While students of noble ancestry “were historically concentrated at Sciences Po Paris, their presence is now more evenly distributed among the most prestigious establishments, with business schools displaying the highest levels of overrepresentation “high,” according to the study.
Another lesson: men of noble ancestry are more over-represented than women in these prestigious schools, even if the gap has narrowed.
“The descendants of the nobility have partly lost their financial dominance, but implemented a strategy of preserving social status, by maintaining social networks” and by investing in “educational capital” in particular, emphasized to AFP Stéphane Benveniste, who relied in particular on the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.
