Contenu du sommaire : Les sociologues de l'éducation et le passé

This report deals with sociology's relations with history, looks back to its relations with the past and, finally, with the present. Thus, sociology has been close to history since its inception, before straying from as if it was emancipating itself and searching for a scientificity effect. Today, it is once again moving closer to the past. This presentation analyses the different forms of hybridization which have occurred between the two disciplines (social history, historical sociology and sociohistory) and decongests the specificities of the sociology of education in its relations to history. Academic institutions are paradoxically conservative but in a state of permanent reform. These two aspects make it compulsory to have historical knowledge, both in other to demystify the relationship with an institution's past, whether it is progressive or nostalgic, and in order to situate educational reforms in the long term of social change.

The article produces a reading grid to give meaning to the evolution of academic programs. If the latter are policies, social relations are their condition and their purpose: projects of society are hosted within curricula. Thus, knowledge certified by diplomas is today a powerful means of regulating inequalities, including economic ones. This analysis of the first and second years of secondary school between 1880 and 2015 characterises the education system –the relationship between an educational offer and a social demand– specific to each historic state. It spans three eras: the era of distinction (approximately 1880-1960) which corresponded to a political project assigning to the secondary school the function of the distinction of the elites; the era of meritocracy; approximately 1960-1990, which replied to the political project of broadening the social base of the secondary school in order to develop technical capabilities favourable to industrial development; and the era of assessments, which began around 1990 with globalisation, in which knowledge is seen as a crucial factor of production. Educational policy aims to raise the general level of the population and to lead to the success of students at the end of compulsory secondary schooling. Therefore, sociologists do not considered time here as uniform, but with covariations, as breaks detected by historians.

By proposing a joint analysis of public education and medico-social policies, this sociohistorical perspective renews with the genesis of the social implementation of issues linked to the categorisation of the intellectual efficiency of young students. The reconstruction of links between educational standards and the psychological designations of the individual difficulties of students retrospectively clarifies the interactions between the social problematizations of academic failure and the construction of a public disability policy. Seen in terms of social protection, disability has re-examined the historical dependency of medical categorisations with regard to academic normativity. The European affirmation of social integration objectives, founded on the pre-eminence allocated to the training of human capital, illuminates, at a level unseen, the progressive highlighting of economic arguments as the main foundation of academic institutions.

Until the “Quiet Revolution” of the 1960s, the official ideology of the Quebecer Franco-Catholic academic system appeared traditional and confessional. However, from its inception, the defenders of public education aspired to put into practise modern pedagogical ideals. They articulated rather than opposed its utilitarian and intellectual vocations, by searching to situate Quebecer society within civilisation. The analysis of the successive laws which built public education in the 19th century demonstrates their liberal character, negotiated with stakeholders with other ideologies, thus rendering possible the separation of political society between majority groups, on the one hand, protestant English speakers and on the other hand, catholic French speakers. In the Franco-Catholic camp, this lead to the emergence of a modern academic system dominated by a traditionalist ideology.

The social, cultural and pedagogical stakes linked to the Quebecer educational system are the subject of continual debate, of which the terms have stabilized in institutional discourses (official and advisory) aiming to define ministerial policies. Nevertheless, all these stakes and analyses as well as the official recommendations and policies which followed connect into the social and historical framework of a modernity in which Habermas examined the principals and shortcomings and which, in the author's opinion, are the same as those in Quebecer institutional discourses.

This article retraces the sweeping transformations of the Quebecer university system by identifying the articulations between university policies and general political orientations. Two key periods distinguish themselves. Between 1960 and 1980, the focus was on the necessary growth of higher education and the obligation for Quebec to favour a broader access to higher education. Since 1980, the growing influence of the need to reduce the public deficit, public management, the rise of the knowledge society and lifelong education and training have become references of action. The definition of the notion of equal opportunities has been extended and its status in the public action has been modified. It now has a central place in the debate on the financing of universities and the increase of academic rights.

The comparison of social inequalities regarding access to higher education degrees demonstrates that social origins have twice as much influence in Switzerland compared to Finland. The characteristics of these countries' educational systems (degree of massification, structure of secondary schools) shed light on these differences, but are not enough to explain the social dynamics leading to these inequalities. A sociohistorical comparison makes it possible to identify the distinct development paths taken by these two European States with relatively similar academic systems. It underlines the interest of questioning inequalities regarding access to higher education in the long term as well as the consequence of historical events which have transformed societal structures and which today continue to influence the role allocated to education and the legitimacy of social inequalities which span them. Hence, the importance of treating educational policies in the broadest possible framework of social policies in order to better understand the current inequalities of higher education.

The ultimate paradoxical institution, a vocational school's goal is to prepare students for professional integration, in particular for blue-collar jobs. In 1985, there was a change in vocational schools' mission with the creation of the vocational baccalaureate, then, after it was generalised over 3 years after the 3rd year of secondary school, leading to an increase in the number of students wishing to continue their higher education studies. If these evolutions have contributed to enhancing a teaching order which has historically been dominated in the academic hierarchy, it has also been associated with new tensions: the symbolic hegemony of the vocational baccalaureate has marginalised the CAP [Vocational Training Certificate], has exposed it to a de-professionalization and a disqualification of the professional skills of students preparing for it. This has been heightened by the competition from sandwich courses which has destabilised the identity of vocational schools whilst favouring the construction of new skills for teachers when consequently, they teach students to prepare for diplomas on the basis of different modalities. Finally, the contribution of vocational schools in raising qualification levels cohabits with a high level of absenteeism rate and academic dropping out.

This article presents a study which was carried out amongst 968 schoolchildren transitioning between elementary school and secondary school in Quebec. It examines the effect of the Specific Pedagogical Projects (PPP) on the composition of the group-class and, on the basis of these, the academic performance of the students. The sampling analysis is based on the performance obtained in standardized mathematics tests at the end of elementary school and at the end of the second year in secondary school. The organisation of the PPP has increased the academic and socioeconomic contrasts between groups-classes, and a deleterious effect exists, in terms of the academic success of students, who are schooled in group-classes in which there is a concentration of students with a low academic performance and underprivileged socio-economic backgrounds.

Children are often perceived as a homogeneous social group and their ordinary conflicts are very rarely studied. This ethnographic survey carried out during one year in a school in Ariège, France, in a CM2 class [the last year in primary school] gives us a more in-depth view of the conflicts between girls and their role within peers, by taking into account the structure of social relations. In this study, the modalities of dealing with conflict are linked to the socialisation modes of children and their social resources, analysed on the basis of the physical practices (fun activities and body appearance) developed in the school playgrounds. More specifically, this study highlights the role of the agonistic dispositions within infantile social relations and girls' hierarchization process.

The implementation of enrolment fees is a policy which has been applied in higher education in the West. Inspired by the theory of human capital, this policy is based on Johnstone's cost sharing notion. The principle being that “the one who benefits pays”, the student who becomes profitable thanks to education must contribute with his or her own money. In 1999, this cost sharing system led to China implementing enrolment fees. Was this decision a choice between reproducing the Western model or the pragmatic attitude of a government which wants to open up education to the masses?The author reviews the history of Chinese education in order to analyse the initial motivations of the enrolment fees policy, describes the establishment of market forces in higher education and shows that the implementation of cost sharing, inspired by Western models, is an option which the Chinese government had no choice but to follow.

Within the French national education system, the taking into account of the diversity of the students (drop outs, disabled, etc.), the wish to interest students as well as developing diverse skill sets have led to varying pedagogical modalities. This analysis focuses on the case of teaching designed in the framework of a project, a modality which has increasingly been developed over the past few years. Based on comprehensive interviews with active teachers, from maternal school to high school, and in relation to their pedagogic tools, the articles looks into the organisation of knowledge, the modes of socialisation, the relation to the environment and the organisation of work between partners. On the basis of empirical data, these results make it possible to propose the concept of integrative form, in the lineage of the work of Guy Vincent and Basil Bernstein.