Contenu du sommaire : La posture critique en sociologie de l'éducation

INTRODUCTION
The critical stance in sociology of education : assessing its current situation and thinking of future prospects

Taking complexity seriously. New foundations for social criticism
In the contemporary context, actors become increasingly autonomous and interdependent at the same time. Threshold effects imply that the situation is defined in new terms. We are now at a crossroads where several orientations are possible and compatible. It affects the multiplication of places of socialisation and their mutual interactions. The school system seeks to reaffirm a role of its own. Social criticism based on a dichotomic and dualistic reading may be increasingly ineffective. Taking complexity seriously implies distancing oneself from a holistic and atomic conception of social life. This text tries to offer a paradigm which makes it possible to reconstruct elements of various origins in a new syntagm. To that end, it offers to link cybernetics with social transaction to understand better the kind of collective orientation in a decentralised context. It should be critical food for thought on the link between schooling and dynamic equality.

The new challenges of criticism
Critical sociology was associated for a long time with two main models – those of revelation and of emancipation. Nowadays, their respective exhaustions open the way to new intellectual challenges : a complexification of relations between analysts and actors on the one hand and the search of a new intellectual stance on the other hand to define new forms of liberation.

Why is sociology a critical science ?
If sociology's mission consists in deconstructing the conditions of action of social reality agents through the exposure of blind spots on their behavioural patterns, then it cannot but be a critical science. This stance is not to be mistaken with that of denunciation and does not prevent sociology, as part of its tasks, from telling the truth about this social reality, in keeping with its original scientific vocation. Thus it has to ignore the constraints of contractual research, challenge the blind trust in routine conceptual and methodological tools and in various forms of ideological commitment. The distinction between social and sociological problems remains necessary as it determines the defence of the equally necessary autonomy of the scientific field.

Critical sociology and critique of sociology
Faced with a market-oriented political situation as the sole framework of thought, supposedly anti-institutional and multi referential critical sociology only has few occasions to convey its philosophy. Indeed the absence of a true critical policy prevents the challenge of the current social whole, which in turn determines the various aspects of existence but also the sociological institution itself and its works. Then, the critical process suggests the exploration of new fields of investigation through a move beyond traditional sociological categories and self-analysis. It would thus spare dissimulation behind fake axiological or ethical neutrality.

Governing with words – lexical strategies in the service of consensus... against the social field ?
This article is set in a process of construction of an exteriority in relation to power-related words. They weave a network of signification that leaves its mark on ordinary actors as on economic, social, political reality. The goal of research is to take this work of evidence as object. We are now all moving into a political imagination - neoliberalism - which crushes the world representations at the origin of claims for democracy, the self-determi-nation of peoples and equality of rights. A tremendous work of reorganisation of collective values is taking place through a battle of words which spares no field, including sciences. This article gives a few examples of lexical strategies, a clear indication of a global social reorganisation worked out by the political system of the European Union. Life-long education and its double

Contribution to a critique of political economy of school effectiveness
The recommendations of the European Commission concerning life-long education and the improvement of the educational systems' effectiveness are based mostly on Anglo-Saxon references. Behind the slogan of ‘a rise in standards', these new references of assessment lead to question the nature of objectivized knowledge transported by experts to implement instruments for a better quality education. It is the reason why this article traces educational policies testing their effectiveness and their implications in setting up a European space of education. If, historically, the alliance between science, management and politics points to the relentless pursuit of school effectiveness, this model has gradually internationalised to become the standard from which the new forms of governance of educational systems are worked out. However it has caused opposite effects in terms of equal opportunities in education.

History and criticism in sociology of education : the case of the French community in Belgium
From a two-level reading, a historical, genetic perspective on one side and a dialectical perspective of interactions between actors on the other side, we are to question the reasons of the particularly worrying state of the school system in the French community in Belgium. Following a necessary contextualisation in the long run, the difficulties met by the different institutional actors are examined to understand how, under the guise of rhetorics from the teaching fields and more recently from international organisations, the attempts to conceal the poor running of the system have failed.

The hundred fruits of a chestnut tree. Contribution to the history of a commonplace : mass schooling
The example of mass schooling, a real commonplace, gives us the opportunity to emphasise the usefulness of studying political rhetorics in the long run. This study may contribute to go beyond the crisis faced by constructivism and help find shortcuts to analyse how relations are made between daily action and the general principles without resorting to all the intermediary procedures. It also makes possible a new start for criticism in the sociology of education : both supporters and opponents to mass schooling make its critical function their own. The Enlightenment movement wanted a school separated from religion to free children from the prejudices of the world. The New School rejected that separation. In turn Bourdieu and Passeron denounced the promise of equal opportunities as a justification for the autonomy of French schools. Such criticisms made it possible for a system of decentralised governance to introduce market-oriented principles at school. The different trajectories show the heterogeneity of critical viewpoints on education. Understanding how this topic moved in a century from the supporters of the Ancien Régime to those of the Popular Front then to European technocracy leads us to construct an exteriority which may contribute to renewed criticism.

Listening to Southern criticism
The chasm between anthropology and sociology according to the researchers' interest for an object located in the North or in the South could not be completely dispelled even though its pointlessness is unanimously admitted. Criticism proves weakened as it is only based locally and cannot target the logics which, both in the North and in the South, lead to suffering and inequalities. African countries south of Sahara took over criticism, integrated it in an increasingly protean thinking. However it is clearly more and more considered as the most structured doctrine in opposition to a market-oriented globalisation.

Beyond stigma : stigmatization as a critical conceptual tool of interactions and school judgements
The adjective ‘stigmatised'is often used in sociology in the following expressions : ‘stigmatised'schools, ‘stigmatised'neighbourhoods. Unfortunately, this term, for lack of accurate definition, is a vague understatement for social exclusion. This shift in meaning almost overshadows the coherent sociological theorization on ‘stigma' by Erving Goffman, more precisely on ‘stigmatisation' as, first and foremost, a social process. It is individuals and not, abusively, schools or neighbourhoods, who are stigmatised in a particular social relation. From a critical perspective, we shall examine ‘tribal'(ethnic) stigmatisation once theorized by Goffman. Other forms of stigmatisation at school than those tackled by the author are to be analysed as sociology in the 1950s was too limited in its scope to have a critical approach of the school institution. Indeed, stigmatisation only concerned peer group ostracism in Goffman's view, which largely excuses this institution and ignores the stigmatising content of school judgements.

VARIA Mobilization and discouragement at school : the subjective experience of students
Research into the causes of the students' different school experiences has been extensive. However the available explanations given by students to their success or failure at school have not been analysed. Thus 474 students were asked to write the landmark events which were likely to account for their motivation or discouragement at school. The students surveyed experienced teaching situations in which the relational and professional expertise of their teachers played a key role in their school history. Finally, research shows the interest for sociology of the subjective experience of students.

Liking school or not What primary school pupils say and why
This article focuses on the relations of primary school pupils with school.This research work based on a 2,500-strong sample of ten-year olds first analyses the content and polarity of the answers they give to justify why they like school or not. Then we tried to find correlations between their statements and their school or socio-demographic background. Finally the influence of school itself is examined : the class (more than the school environment) and the peer group play a more significant role in pupils' relations to school than methodological issues.