Quantification of school dropout in Quebec and France: effects of perspective and spatial scales
This article analyzes the quantification instruments of public action to fight against school dropout in France and in Quebec. This comparison of an instrumentation within its national context enables us to discuss the effects of perspective generated by the use of a wide variety of quantification instruments. The assessment of the scope of the phenomenon calls for a multi-scalar approach on a national, supranational, regional and local level. It shows that the exigencies of a statistical instrumentation moved from a priority given to interstate comparison to a priority given to the estimation of regional or local indicators aimed at mobilizing and enabling field actors. It reveals the political role of the variety of definitions (categories of equivalence), indicators (frequencies or percentages), ranking scales and thresholds of comparison. They provide, in fine, rhetorical repertoires to national and regional actors mobilized either for accrediting an emergency to act or to demonstrate the efficacy of the action undertaken.