The French system relies on a state-regulated model of vocational training regimes (Greinert, 2005). It thus distinguishes itself from the dual corporatist model or the liberal market economy model that can be found in the german and anglo-saxon worlds respectively.

The French education system is based on a strong academic convention (Verdier, 2018) embodied by a specific grammar of schooling, a "school form" (Robert, 2013). The vocational training system has a strong tradition of schooling (Brucy, Troger, 2000). Although the vocational baccalaureate is presented as a baccalaureate "like any other", the vocational route suffers from a hierarchy of disciplines imposed by academic convention (David, 2021). In fact, the vocational baccalaureate is therefore a baccalaureate somewhat apart (Maillard, Moreau, 2019), whose identity and comparative advantages are regularly questioned. The problems of the vocational track are now attributed by the political and economic world to the academic convention.

Since 2007, the French vocational track has undergone two important reforms: the renovation of its flagship diploma and the inclusion of apprenticeship in vocational high schools (until then, apprenticeship was reserved to the training centers of apprentices). A third reform is in preparation. This multiplicity of reforms raises questions about the real effects of these political decisions on the education system.

At the end of the Second World War, France gradually set up vocational high schools. Created in 1985, the lycée professionnel (LP - vocational high schools) actually welcomes more than two-thirds of the young people in the vocational track for upper secondary education (RERS, 2021), with the remaining third turning to apprenticeship in apprenticeship centers. The LP was instituted at the same time as a new vocational diploma: the vocational baccalaureate, which was prepared in four years (compared to three years for the general and technological baccalaureates).

The creation of this diploma competes with the CAP diploma (created in 1919) in order to respond both to a political will (to revalorize the vocational pathway, to reduce the number of graduates without diplomas, to improve the link between training and employment) and to a demand from the metallurgy sector. This sector, represented by the employers' federation (very powerful in France) asked for the creation of an intermediary diploma between the CAP diploma and the technician's diploma (for higher education). This diploma was to prepare young people capable of mastering numerically controlled machines and looking for a quick integration (Bernard, Troger, 2012). The LP has helped to absorb the massification of access to education. The growth of students has been accompanied by the abolition of entrance tests (Pelpel, Troger, 1993): these two elements have contributed to the downgrading of the vocational track's image.

The last reforms of the vocational path are presented by politicians as a desire to revalorize the vocational pathway in terms of the vocational convention by attenuating the school-based form that links it to the academic convention.

Based on the sociology of conventions (Boltyanski, Thevenot, 2006), this paper proposes to reflect on the evolution of the French vocational training system. To what extent does the implementation of these reforms, and the necessary translations by the actors in the field that they imply, allow for this renovation of the vocational track ?

Our work is based on a qualitative survey by six monographs of vocational high schools (30 semi-structured interviews with teachers, trainers and students ; and observations) implementing these reforms. The vocational high schools include rural and urban establishments and various specialties (mechanics, aesthetics, cooking, construction, metallurgy, electronics, etc.). Students mix school-based training and apprenticeship. This first set of data is articulated with five semi-structured interviews of executives of the educational institution who accompany these changes.

From the point of view of young people, the vocational high school offers a secure space for revalorization (Gendron, 2005) where it is possible to give meaning to knowledge and to positively reconnect with school (Jellab, 2008). The 2009 reform of the vocational baccalaureate (reducing to three years instead of four) seems to have had a positive effect on working-class families, helping them to envisage their children continuing their studies in higher education (Bernard, Troger, 2012). It is precisely this propaedeutic nature of the vocational baccalaureate that is being debated: initially conceived as a preparation for professional integration, does the bac pro still play its role for the social partners and the economic world? The 2018 reform of vocational education attempts to revive the professional dynamics of this diploma by developing a system of hybridization of training through school and apprenticeship, by pooling the teaching of general and vocational subjects and by imposing the realization of a "masterpiece" (a term that refers to the creation of a masterpiece, showing the professional mastery of the candidate and historically closing the training of journeymen). The aim is to revalorize the vocational pathway, by trying to link it with a past imaginary of the craft-trade-based vocational training model. These reforms are also based on a weak representation of dual corporatist system and vocational convention: the productive dimension appears to be a more efficient training modality. However, the increase in training time in companies is not accompanied by greater participation of economic stakeholders. To what extent do these changes contribute to the evolution of the academic convention? The aim of this paper is to answer this question.

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