Social Economy education: State of the art report for France

Social and Solidarity Economy education in France: Strong HE provisions but the collaboration between HE and SE actors could be developed. France has a long history and tradition in the social economy, and the 2014 law has revitalised its influence and strongly contributed to the current institutionalisation of the sector bringing different forms of social organisations under one banner and setting the principles and criteria guiding it. This is also evident in the existing higher educational provisions in the country under the RIUESS network with over 20 UG courses, 40 PG courses and 19 ‘other’ courses available, perhaps the largest offering of social and solidarity programmes in Europe. All programmes have an explicit focus on social and solidarity economy offering a fine balance between theoretically rigorousness and practical skills. Programmes are modular over 1 or 2 years with the majority of them involving some period of work experience/internship aiming to help students acquire work experience and establish networks. Collaborations, particularly in the delivery of programmes, with SE actors is encouraged, yet is less clear from our findings whether these collaborations extend to the designing of the programmes too.