During the last decades, a process of reorganisation of the field of higher education has taken place, provoked by processes of a worldwide internationalisation and globalisation. The traditional national system of elite education in France, which could be considered as unique, characterised as it is by the close interrelation between preparation classes, concours and grandes écoles, is facing a crisis. Lebègue and Walter (2008) predict “the end of a French exception”. The French higher education system has reacted to the global competitive pressure, manifested, for example, in international university rankings, with the creation of larger research units such as the “Communautés d’universités et d’établissements” (COMUES) [Communities of universities and institutions], which have recently been transformed into universities. Musselin (2017: 226) designates this as a “fusion mania”, whereby the grandes écoles are challenged to redefine their traditional identities. Our paper focuses on the processes of restructuring of the identities of national institutions in elite education – the grandes écoles – using the example of two Écoles normales supérieures: the ENS de la rue d’Ulm and the ENS de Cachan (since 2016 ENS Paris-Saclay). Our research aim is to analyse how the Écoles normales supérieures shape their self-constructions and -positionings against the background of current transformation processes in the French higher education landscape. From a theoretical perspective, these constructions and positionings are understood as constituting elements of institutional habitus (Schippling 2018): a concept emerging from the Bourdieusian interplay of theoretic elements habitus, field and capital (Bourdieu 1989) and developed for the analysis of organisations. The study has a qualitative research design and proposes an analysis of semi-structured expert interviews with 18 lecturers that have or have had representative functions at these two colleges, as well as of websites and other related representational documents and also participant observation of culture-related events of these higher education institutions. Our method of analysis is the documentary interpretation method (e.g. Bohnsack 2021). In conclusion, we offer new insights into the French field of elite education via the example of the Écoles normales supérieures as they face the challenges of a worldwide reorganisation of higher education systems, at the same time as developing a new perspective on the fundamental theses of La noblesse d’État (Bourdieu 1989).

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