Contenu du sommaire : Concurrence des discours de vérité à l'école

Introduction
This file deals with the way education systems, curricula, textbooks, teachers and students attempt to reconcile the discourse of the so-called Western science with the ones stemming from religion, opinion and tradition including local expressions of the magic and the witchcraft. It deals with the question of identities, beliefs, power and resistance in modern school. The idea of competing discourses of truth refers to Latour for whom our modern society has never worked in accordance with wide sharing based on the world around him. The end of the great closing in of the school or the rule of confinement results in the need for the students to juggle with the truths, that can be different depending on the times and places.

The swarming of competing truths in classrooms
The advent of what Bauman (2003) defines as “liquid modernity” is the end of the long period during which the skills taught at school were regarded as indisputable as they were protected by God, Reason, Nature or Science; obviously based on the times. Except some idealists, including Condorcet, the fathers of compulsory school did not consider that the exposure to the truth would be enough to lead the students in a smooth manner. They have therefore created a disciplinary order expressing a political project owing nothing to the truth, but including the requirement to recognize what is defined as such and submit to it. With the liquid modernity, this political project has become the exaltation of autonomy and responsibility of the individual. All forms of truth are thereby rehabilitated; the classroom becomes a place where each of them can compete with all the others.

How do the students finishing French-speaking Belgian secondary education place scientific knowledge and religious beliefs? Based on a theoretical model developed from an analysis of the positions between science and religious beliefs over time and in different cultural environments (Minois 1990, 1991, 1998; Urvoy 2006), six ideal types have been defined (Wolfs 2013). A close-ended questionnaire has been administered to a sample of 638 students in their last year of French-speaking Belgian secondary education. The influence of two factors on the positions of the students has been studied: their personal beliefs about religion (Catholic, Muslim, agnostic, atheist) and the number of hours of their scientific training. The results show a strong influence of the first factor and a variable influence of the second one, according to the degree of convictions of the students.

Scientific and religious discourses about the origin of living species in secondary school textbooks in Greece. The content of school textbooks of Greek religion used these last few years has been examined. The article seeks if the discourses of scientific and religious truth –particularly those about the origin of living species – are presented as competitors or not. Representations which seem to be related in competitions are studied: the discourse is or not shown as a truth, the nature of this truth is or not considered; the discourses are compared or not, the nature of this comparison is or not considered, and finally, one of the two discourses is prominent over the other one. By taking support on a theoretical model developed by Wolfs, content analysis shows that, even if the discourses of the truth are explicitly presented as immense and non-competitors, some representations promote the need for indivisibility between the two. The primacy of the religious discourse on the scientific one is transmitted in a vague manner during the last years of secondary education.

Secular education, permeability of religion and fight for legitimacy within French school premises in Tunisia. How does secularism within the school premises of the French high schools in Tunisia allow to legitimize the religious or non-religious truth of Tunisian or binational graduates? How does it deal with the diversity of religious practices of the families who send their children there? Through a qualitative analysis of school choices aroused by social and religious self-segregated strategies, the article shows that this system of education favors, on the one hand the cultural autonomy of Muslim families, and on the other hand the rejection of dogmatic Islam. Secularism is then analyzed as a value which allows the bypassing of the social and religious codes of the country. Indeed, for most of the French high school students and their families, secularism authorizes a plurality of religious practices and, above all, the preservation of their vision of Islam in a society which reveals other practices, other values, and which can lead to fears of indoctrination.

The management of the cultural conflicts inherent to the educational choice in Djibouti: between denial, defense and interculturation. Are the relations of interaction established between formal and non-formal education in Djibouti in four types of schools: public school, private Catholic school, Koranic school and madrasa? A first study of the assignments related to these educational modes emphasizes the ranking of existing skills. Then, the discourses of the stakeholders (teachers, parents, headmasters, students and school dropouts) are analyzed, focusing on the factors affecting the educational choices of the families. The multidisciplinary approach of the confrontation of these discourses of truth has mobilized the tide of economies of scale, the conceptual frameworks of the ethno-psychoanalysis and the psychology of connection between cultures. It shows the processes of justification of distance or cultural proximity between the discourses of truth. It highlights the management strategies of paradoxical injunctions implied by the cohabitation between the dogma dominating in society and the freedom of conscience advocated at the secular school.

The social creation of truth. The case of education in Senegal and Rwanda
The author offers an analysis of the relationship between the discourses of western science, religion and tradition, in the teaching of two African countries who do not share the same affiliations and beliefs. Senegal is officially of French-speaking language and predominantly Muslim. Rwanda, where the official language of education has been English since 2009, is of mostly Christian population. Taking support on the sociology of translation and Foucault's concept of device, the article deals with the strategic actions which develop the device and show that the latter may be separated from the institution. Local truths are not only variations of a global truth. Different definitions of fairness coexist in the analyzed societies, but fail to reduce each other.

Do the creationist conceptions of teachers vary according to their religion?
The conceptions of teachers, especially related to the biological evolution, have been analyzed in thirty countries, chosen for the diversity of their religions. All in all, 10,651 teachers have been surveyed according to the same questionnaire, designed and validated by the project BIOHEAD-Citizen, and in each country the same types of primary and secondary school teachers (biology or language of the country) have been targeted. The results show important differences between countries, the percentage of radical creationists-conceptions ranging from 2% to 84%. Within the same country, when the comparison between religions is possible, there is no difference between the teachers, with the exception of protestants (evangelicals) who are more creationists that their colleagues in four countries. For Muslims, only the Sunnis are a little more creationists that their colleagues in Lebanon, but they are a little less in Burkina Faso. In all the countries, a high proportion of religious teachers responded on the origin of life through an evolutionary item or both a creationist and evolutionary one, showing that for them, there is compatibility between their faith and the acceptance of scientific knowledge about evolution. Finally, the complexity of sociological parameters which could explain the observed variations is debated.

Religious schools and education for citizenship: the case of Jewish schools in Quebec
After a presentation of the legal situation and the social perceptions relating to religious private schools in Quebec, this article compares empirically how -and under what aspects- the religious dimension of a Jewish school called traditionalist and another one, describing itself as orthodox, is reflected in their discourses and practices. Inspired by the ethnographic tradition, this nuanced analysis helps to identify similarities and significant differences thus revealing a portrait quite more complex than suggested by the normative debates on religious private schools. Turning into a multifaceted perspective the place of Judaism in the educational goals of those two schools, the place of internal and external pluralism and the conception of autonomy conveyed in the schooling, the article shows, in both cases, the desire to form good citizens carrying Jewish values perceived as universal.

French journalists in education: a typological study
The foundations of the professional identity of a category of stakeholders –who haven't been much studied by the research yet – journalists in French education working in the national media, are studied. On the basis of a qualitative survey by interviews of thirty of them, the author proposes a pragmatic typology distinguishing four typical profiles of journalists: the “experts”, the “converted”, the “versatile” and the “outsiders”. In contrast to the discourse that homogenizes this category of stakeholders, the paper shows that their professional identity depends on a number of variables that the typology allows to condense. They should be taken into account in the analysis of problematizations of public action at work in media production.

Identity and social effects in the call for educational policies changes on the stakeholders
The issue of a change in education is studied through two recent educational policies: the inclusion of the pupils with particular educational needs (PEN) and the Internat d'Excellence boarding schools. By borrowing two major concepts in the social sciences –identity and socialization – this article highlights the effects of mandated changes on the involved stakeholders: the professionals of the early childhood and education on the one hand, the boarders in the Internat d'Excellence on the other hand. The analysis of the qualitative collected data enables to query the existing tensions between identities, primary/secondary socializations and family/school socializations.

Ethnic diversity and inclusive education: foundations and perspectives
This article illustrates the main foundations of inclusive and equitable education. First of all, it sets its major “principles of action” and opens the debate on the development of indicators to implement a fair and inclusion process in schools. Emphasis is also placed from an equity and inclusion perspective on the central role of the professional skills in both vocational and basic training of professionals in education in Quebec. The article also highlights the common paradigm that connects the various currents on ethno-cultural, religious and linguistic diversity in education, including the anti-racist and inclusive approaches. To conclude with, two major challenges are raised with regard to the implementation of an institutional inclusive approach in Quebec.