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.

Les élèves et l'histoire dans l'examen français du certificat d'études primaires entre 1918 et 1926

This article presents the method used to study examination papers written by young pupils. This sort of pupils’ work can give information on who are involved in examinations.

‐ The pupils: what they learn in history and how they produce answers;

‐ The teachers: what they teach in their class and how;

‐ The juries: how they assess by means of a grade the minimum knowledge of most of the pupils who are to leave school.

The problem here is to follow the route from laws and decrees to real teachers and real pupils. Therefore, this research relies on source material such as annual primary inspector reports, annual local teachers’ meetings with model lessons, and, above all, examination papers. For this last source, a popular examination in France at that time was used: the Certificat d'Etudes, which was given at the end of the primary curriculum for 13‐year‐old pupils. By chance, the Departmental Archives of the Somme region still has 4058 history test examination papers from 1918 to 1926.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

L'Éducation à la Carrière: Une Étude Brésilienne de la Validité Transculturelle du Questionnaire sur l'Éducation à la Carrière

Abstract: Career education: A Brazilian study on transcultural validity of the Career Education Questionnaire. The purpose of this study is to validate a Brazilian version of the Career Education Questionnaire (Questionnaire sur l'éducation à lacarrière) of Dupont and Gingras (1990) and to compare the results with those for the original Quebec and Spanish versions. A Brazilian sample of 390 male and 499 female high school students is used to establish the psychometric properties of the instrument. Results of item analysis, correlations between scales, and factor analysis obtained with this sample strongly corroborate those obtained for the Quebec and Spanish samples. Future studies are needed to further investigate the cross-cultural validity of the instrument. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

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.