Contribution
Description: The paper is part of doctoral research on the subject of citizenship education. The research studies the kinds of feelings of justice pupils construct in participation devices called conseil de classe. These "councils" have been broadly developed over the last fifteen years in primary schools in Geneva, but are also developing in other European education systems. The "pupils' council" regularly takes place during class time and implies pupils' as well as teachers' participation. Its main purpose is to resolve conflicts by discussion and decision-making. The question examined in the paper will focus on which competencies this form of participation in classroom life constructs among pupils, what it implies to approaching conflict resolution, and on which values and/or principles the decision is made. Previous research in the field has been conducted by professor François Audigier; these research strongly links citizenship education to the domain of law and its didactic and, more broadly, to social sciences didactics. Audigier distinguishes three kinds of competencies for education for democratic citizenship: cognitive competences, affective competences and those connected with the choice of values, those connected with action, known sometimes as "social competences" (Audigier 2000). The paper will especially focus on "social competences": they imply choices between different and conflicting axiological options, as it is the case in law, when "hard cases" arise (Dworkin 1986).
Methodology: The collection of materials has been carried out in two different primary schools in Geneva. Eight teachers participate in the research; materials have been collected during school years 2004-5 and 2005-6. Filmed observations, interviews with teachers and pupils have been conducted. Texts written by pupils on the question of justice have also been collected. Pupils concerned by the research are aged from 6-7 to 12-13 years; it corresponds to the four last degrees in primary school in Geneva. Reference to the concept of justice and to law is meant to be one variable in the comparison between practices in the two different schools.
Conclusions: The conseil de classe is mainly thought of as a regulating device, as a tool for keeping order in class. The way conflicts are resolved is very much dominated by a socio-emotional dimension. Social or personal capacities that pupils construct within the process are thought to be directly and spontaneously constructed by and during the practice. I will show that the capacities that the conseil de classe enable pupils to construct are not reduced to behavioural capacities, linked with a so-called "vivre ensemble". They need, in certain cases, to appeal to knowledge, know-how, values and principles that are not embedded in the practice. The cognitive and axiological references to justice and law are means to reveal these moments where pupils are confronted with conflicts, where opposing and contradicting values are at stake.
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