ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the questions relating to the theoretical basis and practice of evaluation, by focusing on the social characteristics of the evaluation of employment and training programmes. It draws on the best criteria for the purposes of evaluation and explores the different approaches to evaluation that come out of the comparisons between French and United States studies and their relative importance in each country. The chapter describes the unemployment rates; the dichotomy of the situation is even more striking. It explains the evaluation of active measures in France and in the United States, and beyond that the meaning of and stakes in the evaluation from a 'rapport salarial' point of view. The constancy of the evaluation criteria reflects the efficiency of ALMPs in France and in the United States. Comparison of the evaluations of employment and training programmes can be carried out from the point of view of the approaches favoured in France and in the United States.
