The cognitive and structural determinants of the early childcare enrolment gap according to socioeconomic background  (provisional title)
 

Evaluating arts education policies: cultural redistribution and school remediation
Directeur de thèse - Thesis Director: Philippe Coulangeon (CNRS, Sciences Po - CRIS)

Doctoral Defense, April 1st, 2025, at Sciences Po.

My doctoral research relies on the impact evaluation of the project “Un violon dans mon école”, which teaches violin to disadvantaged pupils aged 4 to 8 years old, in more than 40 schools. This program is funded by a philanthropic organization called the Vareille foundation.
In this context, I implemented a counterfactual quasi-experimental approach, comparing the children participating in the program to a control group with similar characteristics. I conducted cognitive, non-cognitive and musical tests ex-ante, and also used national data to carry on the longitudinal analysis of the programme’s effects.  Using entropy balancing, test and control groups are rendered more similar by equalising the distribution of the initial cognitive and non-cognitive skills; as well as sociodemographic characteristics. 
To complement this mainly quantitative approach, I also conducted interviews with various stakeholders (schoolteachers, violin teachers, parents, philanthropists) and ethnographic observation in some chosen schools.