Contenu du sommaire : Le collège en question. Des professionnels au cœur des tensions

Giving a mark for responsible behaviour in school: school level implementation of a national directive`/titrebIn an effort to curb school violence, the Fillon Law of 2005 (implemented in 2006) directs educational establishments to award pupils a mark, known as a “note de vie scolaire”, for their responsible behaviour in school. Research was carried out in a lower secondary school which is part of a “Réseau de Réussite Scolaire” or cluster of academic excellence, set up to forge links between the primary and the secondary education sectors in deprived areas. Interviewees conveyed the symptomatic problems associated with this type of establishment. The aim of the investigation is to observe how an establishment implements a national directive in a context of teaching and learning systems undergoing change. And this with a “note de vie scolaire” which purports to redefine the role of the key players, which examines the existence of a headteacher-led collective system within the learning community and which considers how pupils should be treated in a fair and egalitarian manner.

An open or closed school environment ? Paradoxes of secondary education in reduced income areas during the 2000s. Faced with a growing number of contradictory edicts, members of staff from lower secondary establishments in reduced income areas resorted to methods which could be considered as paradoxical. In pursuit of the “school for all” ideal, they sought to enhance openness, to keep as many pupils as possible in school, to motivate struggling pupils and at certain times, to work in partnership with local educational partners. However, if we follow the very powerful and ever constant presupposition that certain young people are uneducable and/or unmanageable, thereby epitomising a potential risk to an institution, members of staff (largely ambivalent) were inclined to focus their efforts on both “filtering out” and excluding pupils, often inadvertently turning their school into a closed environment.

When secondary teachers use sanctions : regulations, professional challenges and constraints at school level. Educational policies have re-examined the issue of school discipline and bolstered the regulations framework in a bid to lower the level of violence in schools. The goal of this article is to gain a better understanding of the link between these policies and the experiences of staff at the chalkface. The research consists of two strands : a quantitative investigation (pupils) and a qualitative investigation (lower secondary school teachers). Pupils' feelings of being unjustly treated highlight the low level of commitment by the teachers to the regulations framework and the educational challenges of maintaining school discipline. The reticence shown by staff and the difficulties they encountered in adopting a unified approach towards improved school wide behaviour are also explored.

The division of labour in pupil behaviour management. Pupil behaviour management provides a system for responding to deviant behaviour, but also a system for ensuring acceptable degrees of behaviour from all pupils both inside and outside the classroom. It creates a division of labour amongst school staff : teachers, pupil welfare managers, librarians, educational assistants, headteachers and sometimes school nurses. The distribution of roles and responsibilities depends on often vague cross-group expectations. Hence, although members of each group acknowledge that at some level their work involves behaviour management, they have to contend with what other colleagues expect from them and are more or less capable of standing their ground if needs be. This in effect explains why lower secondary schools operate a division of labour which is in constant flux.

Uniting the academic point of view and the artistic point of view : teaching experiments in a school participating on the “Primary and Secondary schools towards Ambition, Innovation and Success” (ECLAIR)`/titrebDoes the creation of an experimental artistic workshop in an “educational priority zone” lower secondary school lead to changes in the culture of a school ? And does it change the day to day practice amongst general teaching staff ? This investigation demonstrates that teachers'work is very much controlled by the culture of the school and by the requirement to transmit written knowledge according to a regulatory framework. However a timetable reorganisation along with a more personal approach to learning, one which promoted respect and recognition, did represent a change to the day to day practice and did engender greater motivation from the pupils and additional job satisfaction for the teachers.

Private mentoring in the face of new educational demands. This article, which derives from doctoral research, examines the role of private mentoring as an emerging technique in non-academic support for pupils. Mentoring has moved into education via the business world and seems to fit perfectly with new educational requirements when viewed through the prism of the pupil's individual vocational plan. By applying a varied methodology (interviews, observation, quantitative data), the article highlights the hiatus that exists between those pupils who are most often pushed by the institution to develop their individual vocational plan and those who, despite subscribing to the intrinsic worth of the plan, are privately mentored.

Is the notion of a comprehensive lower secondary school (really) a weak link in the educational chain ? Critics of the comprehensive lower secondary school system consider its democratisation as the basis for its weakness. This article enters the debate by discussing the hypothesis that the “weak link ” label does not predicate a reduction in the constraints imposed by a lower secondary school on its pupils, but rather, an increasing pressure exerted by the culture of the school. What we are seeing is in fact a strengthening of the school culture bound up with three dimensions characteristic of an advanced modern society : academic risk, reflexivity and the separation between academic time and space. And so the academic socialisation model continues to dominate in social spheres of activity for young people both in school and outside of school. The “weak link ” label is therefore inextricably tied to the impact of modernity on the school and on the teenage experience.

Comment expliquer la non mise en œuvre d'un logiciel de gestion pourtant reconnu comme pertinent ? Comment une secrétaire, au positionnement hiérarchique modeste, a-t-elle pu débloquer une situation que le dirigeant lui-même considérait comme gelée ?