La educación de los hijos e hijas de las familias empleadas en la localización industrial. El caso del norte de Marruecos

Résumé

In 1983, Morocco initiated a series of economic reforms intending to enter the global economy. Its results started to become apparent in the mid 1990s with the economic take-off of the Alawite country. However, the cyclical economic crises, the severe economic and social inequalities, and the balance of payments deficit have persisted. One of the direct consequences of the change of paradigm in the Moroccan economy has been the concentration in the north of the country of low value-added industry, which exports most of its production. This economic sector mainly creates employment that attracts a low-skilled population. This doctoral thesis analyses the educational paths of children from families that work in this industry, specifically those that are established in the territory of the small former region of Tangier Tetouan. In the first section of the thesis, we develop the theoretical framework. As for the educational field, we present our proposal on the social reproduction theories, supplemented with other theoretical approaches to push further the limits of these theories. Regarding industrial location, our standpoint corresponds with that of the Localised Global Economic Theory (LGET). The second section of this thesis contextualises education and industry through bibliographic review and the statistical analyses of secondary data. In this chapter, we address three levels – an international comparison, Morocco and the region itself. The third section introduces the methodology used, which includes both quantitative and qualitative techniques. The former aim to test the reproductive process of Moroccan schools, whilst the latter intend to explain and provide an understanding of the environment of the studied population, to learn how the inequality of educational opportunities operates in this group of students, and to describe the educational paths of the population under study. Lastly, we present the results: in Moroccan schools, there is an inequality of educational opportunities that is significantly influenced by economic and cultural capitals – given the severe disparities in both dimensions of the Moroccan population; the environment of the families that work in the industry located in the northern part of Morocco is conducive to a reproduction process in school; and finally, we develop the potential paths according to the descendants’ school performance, and the positions held by their parents in the export industry.