Education et société dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle: de Vallange et ses projets de réforme complète de l'éducation 1710–1740

At the beginning of the 18th century, M. de Vallange proposed a wide‐ranging programme to reform education in France. He intended to introduce teaching methods based on John Locke's works and to create a full‐scale system of new educational institutions. The royal institutions called “collèges” were to be abolished and a secular body of academics in charge of the new ones was to be appointed. The new curriculum proposed by M. de Vallange responded better than the former to the requirements of society, the children's capacity for work, and the new intellectual attainments brought about by the scientific progress of the 17th century.

This project formed part of a larger educational trend that, between 1710 and 1740, brought the notion of education closer to the concept of society.     

Analyses de séances en classe et stabilité des pratiques d’enseignants de mathématiques expérimentés du second degré

In this paper we tackle the issue of an eventual stability of teachers’ activity in the classroom. First we explain what kind of stability is searched and how we look for the chosen characteristics: we analyse the mathematical activity the teacher organises for students during classroom sessions and the way he manages the relationship between students and mathematical tasks. We analyse three one-hour sessions for different groups of 11 year old students on the same content and with the same teacher, and two other sessions for 14 year old and 15 year old students, on analogous contents, with the same teacher (another one). Actually it appears in these two examples that the main stabilities are tied with the precise management of the tasks, at a scale of some minutes, and with some subtle characteristic touches of the teacher’s discourse. We present then a discussion and suggest some inferences of these results.

Didactisme et méthode didactique en France: la rationalité de la méthode et l'influence allemande,au début du XXe siècle

The generic term “didactic” has had for a long time in France the rather depreciatory meaning of a formal, expositing method putting the authority of the teacher above active participation of the pupil. Far before the arrival of disciplinary didactics which took place in the 1970s and which acknowledged in France, the German meaning of rational method applied to teaching, there was as early as the beginning of the XXth century a first wave of German Swiss and Belgian influences which enable that underestimated term to regain a rational and reflexive meaning.     

Les enseignants du second degré français et leur conception sur les causes et la fatalité de la réussite (ou de l'échec) scolaire

Can school increase its productivity? Which is the attitude of teachers to this issue? INRP and University of Paris 5 made conducted survey on the issue, by questionnaire. Among more than 2000 answers to the questionnaire, a sample of 988 has been extracted to accurately represent the heterogeneous spectrum of French secondary school teachers. Individual qualities are considered essential spectrum among the conditions for success. The majority of teachers does not expect school to be able to counterbalance individual differences. Implications of these attitudes for teacher training are then discussed.     

Mathématiques de la vie quotidienne au Burkina Faso: une analyse de la pratique sociale de comptage et de vente de mangues

Mathematics teaching in Burkina Faso is faced with major challenges (high illiteracy rates, students’ difficulties, and high failure rates in mathematics, which is a central topic in the curriculum). As evidenced in many of these studies, mathematics is reputed to be tough, inaccessible, and far from what students live daily. Students here look as though they are living in two seemingly distant worlds, school and everyday life. In order to better understand these difficulties and to contribute in the long run to a more adapted teaching of mathematics, we tried to document and elicit the “mathematical resources” mobilized in various daily life social practices. In this paper, we focus on one of them, the counting and selling of mangoes by unschooled peasants. An ethnographic approach draws on the observation of the situated activity of counting and selling mangoes (during harvesting) and on “eliciting interviews” of the involved actors. The analysis of results highlights a richness of structuring resources mobilized and distributed through this practice, related to what Lave (1988) call “the experienced lived-in-world” and “constitutive order.” The mathematical resources take the form of “knowledge in action” and “theorems in action” (Vergnaud, Rech Didact Math 10(23):133–170, 1990), embedded in the social, economic, and even cultural structures of actors.     

Cinquante années de débats et de recherches sur l’école française

Two major factors have contributed to the evolution of French historiography in the history of education in the past 50 years. The first relates to the general orientation of public debate about schools, which has shifted from a paradigm concerning democratisation to one that focuses on student success rates and the efforts to eliminate inequalities of all sorts. The second factor that has affected scholarly orientations lies in changes linked to academic positioning between pedagogy, history, and the educational sciences in the context of increasing university hirings, at least until recently. These two changes in terms of scholarly paradigms and scholarly professional identities have encouraged the development of a certain number of approaches and questions: a reconsideration of the historic role of the State, an interest in a greater diversity of actors in the educational process, and a re-evaluation of the cognitive, cultural and social effects of teaching at all levels. Despite this, the history of education plays a minor role today in France, not only in teacher training but also in debates about the future of schools.     

De l'espace du dessin a celui de l'objet. Une activité de mises en correspondances entre des dessins en perspective cavalière et des objects réels

Résumé L'objectif du travail présenté est de mieux comprendre les difficultés de lecture de dessins d'objets en perspective que rencontre des sujets adultes de bas niveau de formation. 33 sujets participent à l'expérience. Ils doivent décrire verbalement deux dessins en perspective cavalière, puis choisir, parmi un ensemble de dix objets en bois possédant des propriétés spatiales définies, l'object correspondant à chaque dessin donné. Les résultats obtenus montrent que la perception de la troisième dimension dépend des propriétés graphiques des dessins et fonctionne sur le mode du tout ou rien: la troisième dimension est lue par une majorité de sujets, et le quart de la population rencontre des difficultés; nous n'avons observé que très peu de réponses correspondant à un décodage partiel de la profondeur. En conclusion divers procédés pour entraîner les sujets à lire des dessins d'objets en perspective sont abordés.

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From drawing to object space. Analysis of activities connecting objects with their perspective drawings

The aim of the work described here was to gain a better understanding of the difficulties met by adults, of lower levels of education, on reading perspective drawings. 33 subjects took part in the experiment. They had to describe verbally two perspective drawings of objects, then choose, from a collection of ten wooden objects with defined spatial properties, the one corresponding to each drawing. The results obtained show that reading of the third dimension depends on the graphic properties of the drawings, and that success is an all or nothing matter. The third dimension was correctly read by a majority of the subjects, but a quarter of the sample experienced difficulties. We noted that very few answers corresponded to a partial decoding. To conclude, various training procedures are discussed.

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Je remercie Madame Régine Lorfeuvre qui a collaboré à cette expérimentation. Elle a rédigé un mémoire sur ce thème à l'Institut de Biométrie Humaine et d'Orientation Professionnelle de Marseille.     

La perception de quelques difficultés en mathématiques par les professeurs en classe de troisième dans l'enseignement secondaire au sénégal

Sans résumé     

La Mesure des Effets Pédagogiques des TIC : Pièges et Illusions du Découpage du Réel et de L'administration de la Preuve

La forte incitation actuelle de la part des autorités scolaires À recourir aux médias numériques en classe pose une nouvelle fois la question des arguments mis en avant. Et comme À l'occasion d'incitations antérieures (télévision scolaire, audiovisuel, informatique éducative), partisans et détracteurs s'appuient sur différents travaux qui attestent ou non de telle ou telle amélioration ou dégradation. Cette contribution se propose de montrer que les concepts et les modèles convoqués dans certains travaux, y compris les nÔtres et notamment le programme IN-TELE (Internet-Based Teaching and Learning), établissent entre les situations d'enseignement-apprentissage considérés comme classiques et celles qui sont supposées innovantes des distinctions parfois non pertinentes, qui se traduisent par des résultats outrageusement significatifs ou non significatifs. C'est donc le schéma modèle-observation-interprétation que nous interrogeons en suggérant que les outils de pensée disponibles et les procédés d'observation mis en m uvre aujourd'hui dans les différentes disciplines académiques qui s'intéressent aux usages pédagogiques des TIC contraignent, voire altèrent, notre compréhension des phénomènes éducatifs induits par les 'nouveaux' médias. Measuring the pedagogic effects of CIT: traps and illusions of cutting out actuality, and the

administration of proof. The strong current encouragement of school authorities to have recourse to digital media in the classroom poses once again the question of the arguments that have been advanced. And, as at the tine of earlier encouragement, (for school television, audiovisual, educational informatics), partisans and detractors rely on different works which support, or not, such-and-such a praise or detraction. This contribution attempts to show that the concepts and the models brought together in certain works, including our own and notably the IN-TEL (Internet-Based Teaching and Learning) programme, which establish between the teaching-training situations considered as classic and those which are supposed to be innovative, distinctions which sometimes are not pertinent, which are translated into results which are outrageously significant – or non-significant. It is, then, the schema of model-observation-interpretation that we question in suggesting that the mental tools available and the observational procedures used today in the different academic disciplines which are interested in the pedagogic use of CIT constrain us to see, may even, alter our understanding of the educational phenomenon introduced by the 'new' media. Analyse der pädagogischen Auswirkungen von ICT (Information and Communcation Technologies) : Fallen und Illusionen aus der Wirklichkeit, sowie die Beweisführung. Die gegenwärtig stark geförderte Umstellung des Unterrichtsmaterials auf digitale Medien durch die Schulbehörden, stellt erneut die bereits vorgebrachten Argumente in Frage. Und wie schon bei vorangegangenen Einführungen (von Schulfernsehen, Audiovision, pädagogische Informatik) beziehen sich Befürworter und Gegner auf verschiedene Studien, die den Nutzen oder Unnutzen attestieren. Dieser Beitrag versucht aufzuzeigen, dass herangezogene Konzepte und Modelle in verschiedenen Arbeiten - einschliesslich der unseren und insbesondere des Programms IN-TELE (Internet-Based Teaching and Learning) - sich zwischen klassischen Bildungssituationen und denen als innovativ angenommenen wiederfinden - auch wenn diese Unterscheidung nicht immer treffend ist. Wir stellen also das Schema Modell-Observation-Interpretation in Frage, indem wir suggerieren, dass die heute applizierten Denkmodelle und Observationsverfahren - der verschiedenen akademischen Disziplinen, die sich für den pädagogischen Gebrauch von ICT interessieren - für unser Verständnis des pädagogischen Einflusses durch Multimedia hinderlich sind, ja wenn nicht sogar deren Gebrauch nachteilig beeinflussen.     

Modalités de prise de décision chez les filles et les garçons en la présence ou en l’absence de l’enseignant

How girls and boys take decisions in the presence and absence of a teacher – This work is part of an innovative approach to physical and sports education in Tunisia, and team sports in particular. It uses language studies carried out within the framework of this teaching both to generate a reflective attitude on the part of students, and to identify the effect of gender as a variable in the ways in which they make decisions. Discourse analysis highlights the importance of language output by girls and boys in football teaching when a teacher is present or absent. The teacher is an institutional authority who imposes specific uses of language, and when he/she is absent, emotional tensions predominate and may reflect the repression of ideas that occurs when the teacher is present. Although girls appear to take part in the discussion, their utterances are fewer in number, and their analytical statements less effective than those of boys. Girls never gain the upper hand over boys. The study also suggests a redefinition of social role divisions on the basis of gender – masculinity and femininity.     

Quelques aspects didactiques du développement de la pensée des enfants dans les mathématiques et la physique

Sans résuméConférence tenue au Congrès sur l'Intégration des enseignements scientifiques, à Varna, 11–19 septembre 1968.     

L’héritage de la méthode suédoise d’éducation physique en France: les conflits de méthode au sein de l’Ecole normale de gymnastique et d’escrime de Joinville au début du XXème siècle

The Swedish physical education method has had a singular destiny in France. Originally created by the Swedish Per Henrik Ling (1776–1839), it first spread in France thanks to German doctors. From 1902, the Swedish method became the official method of the Ecole normale de gymnastique et d’escrime de Joinville. It caused serious dissension first within the army, between Georges Hébert, a naval officer attempting to spread his own method called ‘Méthode naturelle’, and Emile Coste, a major at Joinville school who was a resolute supporter of Ling’s method; then within Joinville school, where, from 1905, Georges Demeny, renowned physiologist, tried to impose his French method ‘Eclectique’. The three protagonists would use arguments focused on the rationality of the Swedish method to legitimize or criticize it. But this explicit stake based on the validity of the link between a scientific culture – anatomy and physiology – and a physical education method does not mask the implicit stake of real power.     

L'enseignement mutuel à Genève ou l'histoire de l'‘échec’ d'une innovation pédagogique en contexte: L'école de Saint‐Gervais, 1815–1850

In the first half of the nineteenth century, the monitorial system was for some elites the pedagogical invention that could realize the project to provide education for all children of the popular classes. Despite this not being the main pedagogical method, its diffusion was large at first but after a few years it was gradually abandoned. To understand this pendulum movement, this paper tries to show the political, ideological, social and pedagogical involvements of the method. What was its role in providing education for popular classes? Which social and political projects sustained it? Which actors and factors supported it and then gave it up? What were its practices? What was the evolution of the method? From the viewpoint of social and cultural history, this paper aims to analyse and explain the process of this pedagogic innovation through the case of the monitorial system in Geneva from 1815 to 1850.     

Réflexions sur le Congrès International de Filmologie organisé par l'Institut de Filmologie de l'Université de Paris du 19 au 23 Février 1955

Sans résumé     

Les directeurs d’écoles ou l’exercice de l’autorité dans les établissements scolaires de Berlin-Est dans les années 1950

A partir d’un matériau croisant des sources officielles (lois, règlements, directives) et des sources tirées de la pratique scolaire locale (chroniques, protocoles des réunions pédagogiques d’établissements scolaires), l’article souhaite étudier concrètement la “micro-physique du pouvoir” socialiste dans les écoles de Berlin-Est au début des années 1950. On cherche à comprendre comment l’autorité socialiste s’incarne et s’exerce sur le terrain au quotidien dans la construction d’une nouvelle société au moyen de la formation d’un homme nouveau. En partant de la figure du directeur d’école comme lieu d’observation du travail pour imposer le communisme au quotidien, l’ambition est d’étudier l’exercice de la domination politique dans ses relations et ses interactions avec deux acteurs essentiels de l’institution scolaire que sont les enseignants et les élèves. Dans la mesure où le pouvoir socialiste se veut immanent, il n’est pas concentré uniquement au sein des structures du pouvoir central et son champ d’action s’exerce donc dans des “foyers locaux” où il transite par des individus qui doivent officiellement l’incarner au quotidien. Loin de considérer uniquement l’école comme une simple courroie de transmission d’un régime totalitaire qui imposerait d’en haut un système de règles, nous cherchons à travers la figure du directeur à analyser l’interaction entre Etat et société au “ras du sol”: comment exerce-t-on la fonction de directeur d’école au début des années 1950 à Berlin-Est? Dans quelle mesure l’analyse des modalités d’exercice de cette autorité éducative et politique permet-elle de mettre en évidence et d’expliciter un certain nombre de logiques politiques, culturelles et sociales macro-historiques?     

Correspondance entre élèves : conditions d’une activité mathématique « créative » et problématisée à la fin du lycée

In this article, we characterized the forms of reasoning of French high school students (from Terminal Scientifique) in the course of an exchange of messages around the solution of a mathematical problem. Our goal was to determine whether or not the students make use of creative and investigative forms of reasoning. The results show that in the experimental conditions of the ‘mathematical correspondence,’ the students displayed an unusual mathematical problem-solving activity, one that is indeed more creative and investigative than those typically found in a classroom activity. The results are accompanied by an effort to explain the conditions that allowed for this unusual activity to develop and to suggest some paths to use this setting in the classroom, so as to facilitate better learning in problem-solving contexts and the transition from high school to university.     

La diffusion de la géographie dans l’enseignement français (fin XIXe siècle,début XXe) : force du mouvement et variété des projets

From the 1860s to the beginning of the twentieth century, the rise of academic geography in industrialized countries resulted from the need to produce geography teachers. The mushrooming of school geography, in turn, reflected a complex mixture of pedagogic thought, of a modernization trend, of nationalism and of imperialism. In France, this context caused the emergence of contrasting models describing the scientific requirements of school geography, from loose relations between scientific and pedagogical spheres to the structural link joining the republican university to the various school levels. This article details the strategy through which a group of scholars of the École normale supérieure led by P. Vidal de la Blache succeeded in creating a cognitive space for a new scientific discipline. It describes briefly its progressive introduction in elementary and in classical secondary teaching and how several older elements remained in programmes and in the school curriculum.