Un exemple de cadre conceptuel pour létude de l'enseignement de la géométrie en formation des maîtres

We are interested in the teaching of geometry to primary school (children from 3 to 11) teachers. We define a priori a conceptual frame, which organises geometry upon three kinds of knowledge: intuition, experience and deduction. Drawing on Gonseth's works, we bring out three syntheses of elementary geometry: natural geometry (geometry I), natural axiomatic geometry (geometry II) and formalist axiomatic geometry (geometry III). Next we illustrate this conceptual frame with examples of teaching geometry. Last we bring out different conceptions of geometry in scholar system which could lead to cross purposes.This revised version was published online in September 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

L’éducation en prison à la périphérie de l’éducation pour tous

International Review of Education - Prison education on the margins of education for all – Prison education is an issue which would benefit from a more active role of initiative on the part...     

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.     

L’accès des filles à l’enseignement supérieur au Burkina Faso: choix parentaux,parcours d’étudiantes et défis

Girls’ access to higher education in Burkina Faso: parental choices, student trajectories, challenges – What motivates parents from less well-off backgrounds to invest in extended schooling for their daughters? What drives the girls from these backgrounds to stay in the school system up to university level? Many studies on Burkina Faso’s education system show that there are still disparities between girls and boys at all levels, with the gap widening as the level of studies gets higher. Under these conditions, the prospect of pursuing higher education is less certain for girls from less well-off families. Yet, girls from these backgrounds are relatively present at the University of Ouagadougou. Based on a qualitative survey of students and their parents, this article highlights the social rationale determining the specific educational trajectories of these girls. The level of schooling of the older siblings, the girl’s positon in relation to her siblings, or concern for equity are factors in some parents’ decision to enrol their daughters in school. Parents invoke several reasons to justify sending their daughters to university, one of the most frequent being the argument that their daughters faithfully help them in return. As for the students, they mention various motivations to explain why they have persisted with their schooling and university studies, often in difficult circumstances, notably the desire to help their parents. The article also highlights the importance of family support as a factor in girls attending school and university, as well as in the pursuit and success of their studies.     

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.

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.     

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.     

Peut-on apprendre la paix à l’école ? Une évaluation du cours « Éducation aux droits de l’homme et à la citoyenneté » (EDHC) en Côte d’Ivoire post-conflit

Can we learn peace at school? An evaluation of the “Human rights and Citizenship Education” (EDHC) course in post-conflict Ivory Coast – After the post-electoral crisis, the government of Ivory Coast introduced a course entitled “Human rights and citizenship education” (EDHC) to the lower secondary school curriculum to facilitate a societal transition to a culture of peace. This article, which examines the perceptions of course participants and their teachers, is based on a large-scale survey (n = 984), 25 focus groups and course observations carried out in Abidjan. An analysis of the course’s strengths and weaknesses from the point of view of the key players in the education system enables the authors to evaluate its effectiveness. They find that, despite the enthusiasm around this course, its lack of depth is preventing a change of mentality. In addition, the message of peace that the course strives to convey is compromised by school violence.     

L’Association internationale des éducateurs de jeunes inadaptés (AIEJI) et la fabrique de l’éducateur spécialisé par delà les frontières (1951–1963)

Cet article aborde l’histoire de l’Association internationale des éducateurs de jeunes inadaptés (AIEJI), une organisation méconnue dans l’histoire de l’éducation spécialisée. Créée en 1951, elle devient un lieu d’échanges pour des éducateurs en recherche de modèles. Elle est constituée dans le contexte de rapprochement franco-allemand, par le biais de rencontres annuelles, notamment initiées par les éducateurs français, qui existent depuis le début des années 1940, exerçant dans des internats récemment ouverts pour accueillir enfants et adolescents placés. De nombreux voyages d’étude structurent les échanges entre éducateurs de pays différents et forment les contours d’une organisation dont l’axe se situe rapidement entre Pays-Bas et France. L’AIEJI contribue aux débats sur le rôle de l’éducateur, entre pédagogue et thérapeute, ce qui ne se déroule pas sans tension ni résistances. Ils rendent compte des évolutions de la conception de l’éducateur et des pratiques et savoirs qui le fondent. L’AIEJI est le lieu où circulent les conceptions issues du case-work, du group-work, de la psychologie sociale, de la sociométrie. Là, se confrontent une vision praticienne du métier d’éducateur, axée sur le groupe et une vision plus technicienne, basée sur la psychologie et les approches psychanalytiques, davantage tournée autour de la prise en charge individuelle. L’AIEJI s’est enfin insérée dans les nouvelles organisations internationales, réussissant à faire reconnaître l’utilité sociale des éducateurs, y compris dans les pays où ils n’existent pas. Ainsi, à la fin des années 1950, l’AIEJI obtient le statut consultatif auprès de l’UNESCO et devient un acteur de l’expertise internationale en matière de jeunesse inadaptée, ce qui correspond à l’extension de son audience.     

De Genève à Belo Horizonte,une histoire croisée: circulation,réception et réinterprétation d’un modèle européen des classes spéciales au Brésil des années 1930

L’organisation des classes homogènes selon le niveau de développement mental des élèves et celle des classes spéciales pour les enfants en retard scolaire eut lieu dans les écoles élémentaires de Belo Horizonte, au Brésil, pendant les années de 1930, dans le cadre d’une réforme du système d’éducation, à laquelle participèrent des spécialistes étrangers, et en spécial la psychologue russe Helena Antipoff (1892–1974). Le projet des classes spéciales alors établies et leurs transformations dans le contexte brésilien sont étudiés à partir de données documentaires publiées entre 1930 et 1940. Née en Russie, Antipoff a fait des études supérieures en France (1910–1911), comme stagiaire dans le laboratoire Binet-Simon, et à Genève (1912–1914), à l’Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau, où elle exerça ultérieurement les fonctions d’assistante d’Édouard Claparède (1926–1929). Notre hypothèse est que les classes spéciales créées à Belo Horizonte le furent sur le modèle genevois, et constituèrent un important exemple de circulation et diffusion de connaissances au niveau international, ainsi que de construction de repères dans le domaine de l’éducation spéciale au Brésil. Ainsi, la division des classes par niveau intellectuel mesuré par des tests d’intelligence, l’idée de “l’école sur mesure” proposée par Claparède, le dialogue avec les méthodes suggérées par Alice Descouedres démontrent les relations avec le modèle genevois. En même temps, l’interprétation des résultats des tests comme manifestation d’une forme d’ “intelligence civilisée” et les adaptations des exercices d’orthopédie mentale pour développer cette intelligence demandée par l’école montrent les transformations du modèle dans le contexte brésilien.     

Une personnalité du monde de l’Éducation nouvelle: Charles Ange Laisant (1841–1920) et son combat politique pour une éducation rationnelle fondée sur la science

In the world of nineteenth‐century educators Charles Ange Laisant occupies a special place. Laisant’s training, which was that of the French elite, opened up an administrative career but at the same time he continued to work and publish in the subject area of mathematics. His research demonstrates that he was clearly an accepted member of the scientific world, and he met the most eminent mathematicians of his day. Laisant played a major role in structuring the mathematical community, both nationally and internationally. He participated prominently in the battle that led to a change in the status and teaching of science in many countries in the early twentieth century. He is also one of those individuals who dedicated themselves to the renewal of pedagogy and to the goals of the new education. Yet, Laisant is still largely unknown; perhaps because of the profusion of his activities and interests he remains beyond the limits of traditional analysis. The author has chosen here, after retracing Laisant’s life in all its diversity, to focus on the profound unity of thought that characterised his mind. Laisant’s life as an educator allows us to understand how politics, science and teaching were inextricably linked, and to witness how personalities so diverse, even opposing, could come together to pursue common goals of educational reform.