ABSTRACT
The constantly rising demand for educational qualifications and the unrivaled expansion of higher education over the past century would not have been possible to such an extent if a university degree had not been associated with professional opportunities and thereby the chance for upward social mobility. Educational expansion and meritocracy are complementary processes of the progressive bureaucratization and rationalization of Western industrial society. Possession of a university degree became a major criterion for such personnel, both in the private economy and in the government bureaucracy. This chapter examines the types of resistance that were mobilized against the introduction of meritocracy and the strategic importance which its introduction had for the control available to the state bureaucracy. There are few countries in which the selection for leadership positions in both the public and private sectors is so dominated by educational institutions as in France.
