In this contribution, we will focus on two interconnected levels of analysis :

On the one hand, we will submit to discussion a multilevel model of analysis of public action in the field of cultural diversity in education. Building on previous research carried out in Belgium and UK, as well as on a broader literature review on similar issues in Europe, we will hold the hypothesis that, beyond international and national guidelines given by authorities, the way individual schools deal with cultural diversity has to be thought and investigated in a pragmatic perspective, throughout a narrow-scale study of individual schools local “policies”. Local educational policies have to be analysed at the confluent of two axes : (i) on a cultural axe, national and local narratives about nation, integration, cultural diversity and citizenship are constantly reinvented by local actors; moreover, in recent years, these local and national paradigms have been challenged by international normative discourse on “cultural diversity”. (ii) On the institutional axe, structural characteristics of educational systems such as the degree of differentiation and decentralisation, or the existence of “quasi market” mechanisms, have a significant impact on dimensions such as ethnic and socio-cultural segregation between schools, local intake and school composition effects, and local ways of dealing with cultural diversity (through curricular policies, through tolerating or not cultural and ethnic signs within schools, etc.). School policies can therefore been analysed in terms of “niche” or “opportunity hoarding”, which contributes to inequalities reproduction.

On the other hand, we will analyse the effects of such institutionalized organisation of cultural diversity on pupils’ socialisation process and cultural and ethnic identity building process. Building on research carried out with adolescents from ethnic minorities (in Belgium and other European contexts), we will examine the links between school careers, orientation and “subjective hardships” (“épreuves”) leading to contrasted identity strategies (from essentialised figures of ethnic identity to complex identity strategies (multicultural identities, “internally segmented” identities…).