Educational sciences and politics. How is there made appeal on scientific knowledge? The case of Geneva, 1940-1977.

Author(s):

Mathilde de Greck

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

17. Histories of Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

17 SES 07 B, Science and Knowledge Transfer

Paper Session

Time:

2009-09-29

15:30-17:00

Room:

HG, HS 48

Chair:

Bruno Vanobbergen

Contribution

The educational systems have much developed since the democratic states have been established. Society evolved rapidly and new citizen’s training became progressively more complex, with the consequence that a strong demand of pedagogical theorization arose (Hofstetter, Schneuwly, 2002). Several branches of social sciences are specialized in the analysis of educative phenomena. The history of education policies shows that the knowledge, produced by them, has often been invoked, in order to determinate whether the training systems, particularly the public one, are relevant or not. (Draelants, 2007; Lessard, 2008 ; Van Zanten, 2000). We postulate that educational sciences are deeply involved in the educative reforms of the 20 century, thank of the researches undertaken in two different fields: history of education, especially on Geneva (Berthoud, 2006 ; Hofstetter, 2008 ; Magnin, 1997, Muller 2007) and politicies of education, in particular the studies about the stakes between science and politics (Lessard, 2006 ; Normand, 2006; Raulin 2006 ; Saint-Pierre, 2006). In other words, our hypothesis is that scientific knowledge represents a major argument in the decision making in educational field. And that knowledge is used either in an implicit way, or in an explicit way, or it even can be instrumentalized by the politics. Therefore, confronted to strong social demands while undergoing a process of disciplinarization, the educational sciences produce expert knowledge, which induce themselves systematic thinking about educative issues (Hofstetter & Schneuwly, 2000). Invocation of science is not always a synonym of an objective intention. In fact, the same scientific results can be interpreted in different ways by opposite groups (Hofstetter, 2008). In a previous case study concerning Geneva (de Greck, 2007), we showed the impact of educational science’s representatives among the political authorities during the updating of the goals, assigned to public instruction. This study analyses how the knowledge produced by the scientific experts is used between 1940 and 1977 in the political debates concerning the goals of public instruction. Our research questions are: What kind of knowledge does appear in political speeches? How and when expert knowledge is it used? What role science does it play in political scene?

Method

In order to look for the political ideas which have leaded the educational changes we are interested in (40th and 70th), we are going to analyze different types of documents : parliamentary debates, minutes of the commission responsible for education and all the available papers related this assemblies (correspondences, petitions, auditions, …). We will interrogate this corpus (Marrou, 1954 ; Prost, 1996) in three different ways : first on the nature of the knowledge which appears in political speeches, then on the signification of their place they have in the debates and finally on the situation of statement. We are going to organized our reflection on serial criterions: the lexical frequency of the words coming from the scientific world, types of knowledge base (discipline of reference, field of study), function of the message (justification, exemplification, argumentation), persons involved in the speeches (political membership) (Le Bart, 1998 ; Rémond, 1988).

Expected Outcomes

The relationship between politics and educational sciences has also already been strongly made in evidence. Some researches, mainly in France (Van Zanten, 2000) and in Belgium (Draelants, 2007), showed that, in the years 1980, politics appealed largely to science knowledge in order to legitimatize their political decisions. Nevertheless the way the political actors refer to or even instrumentalize the science is blurred. Even if we maintain that a “go between” is necessary between research and political policies, it is even problematic (Lessard, 2008). The study will thus make in evidence mechanisms of interaction between politics and educational research. Il will analyse the logics of argumentation which are their bases, the involved actors and the controversies which occurred. Our context of analysis is narrow, in order to permit in detail these mechanisms, however, at the end, we wish to conclude by more general, inductive statements.

References

Berthoud, C. (2006). Une école du second degré "élitaire" pour tous ou le péril de l'école moyenne. Une histoire du secondaire obligatoire à Genève (1927-1977). Unpublished Thèse de doctorat en Lettres, Université de Genève, Genève. de Greck, M. (2007). Les objectifs de l'Instruction publique entre enjeux socioplitiques et pédagogiques: regard rétrospectif et analytique sur l'article 4. Unpublished Mémoire de licence en Science de l'éducation, Université de genève, Genève. Draelants, H. (2007). Les savoirs comme source de légitimation pour l’action publique en éducation. Les cahiers de recherche en éducation et formation, 59. Retrieved 10 mai 2008, http://www.uclouvain.be/cps/ucl/doc/girsef/documents/cahier_59_Draelants_corr_OK.pdf Hofstetter, R. (in press). L’avènement des sciences de l'éducation : le vivier genevois (fin du 19e – milieu du 20e siècle). Genève: Librairie Droz. Hofstetter, R., & Schneuwly, B. (2000). Pertinence scientifique et pertinence sociale. Mise en persective de six rapports nationaux commandités sur la recherche (en science de l') éducation en Europe. Revue suisse des sciences de l'éducation, 22, 51-92. Hofstetter, R., & Schneuwly, B. (Eds.). (2002). Science(s) de l’éducation (19e-20e siècles) Entre champs professionnels et champs disciplinaires/ Erziehungswissenschaft(en) (19.-20. Jahrhundert) Zwischen Profession und Disziplin. Berne: Peter Lang. Le Bart, C. (1998). Le discours politique (Que sais-je ? N°3397). Paris: PUF. Lessard, C. (2006). Le débat américain sur la certification des enseignants et le piège d'une politique éducative evidence-base. Revue Française de Pédagogie, 154, 19-31. Lessard, C. (2008). Recherche et politique éducatives. In A. van Zanten (Ed.), Le dictionnaire de l’éducation (pp. 460-464). Paris: PUF. Magnin, C. (1997). Le parlement genevois et l’égalité d’accès à l’instruction 1885-1950. Unpublished Thèse de doctorat en Lettres, Université de Genève, Genève. Marrou, H.-I. (1954). De la connaissance historique. Paris: Editions du Seuil. Muller, C. A. (2007). Histoire de la structure, de la forme et de la culture scolaires de l'enseignement obligatoire à Genève au XXe siècle (1872-1969). Unpublished Thèse de doctorat en Lettres, Université de Genève, Genève. Normand, R. (2006). L'école efficace ou l'horizon du monde comme laboratoire. Revue Française de Pédagogie, 154, 33-43. Prost, A. (1996). Douze leçons sur l'histoire. Paris: Seuil. Raulin, D. (2006). De nouveaux rapports entre science et politique: le cas des programmes scolaires. Revue Française de Pédagogie, 154, 61-71. Rémond, R. (Ed.). (1988). Pour une histoire politique. Paris: Seuil. Saint-Pierre, C. (2006). Entre recherche, pratique et politique: le conseil supérieur de l'éducation du Québec, une démarche originale. Revue Française de Pédagogie, 154, 73-84. Van der Maren, J.-M. (1996). Méthodes et recherches pour l'éducation (2 ed.). Bruxelles: De Boeck. van Zanten, A. (2000). Les sciences sociales et l'école. In A. van Zanten (Ed.), L'école, l'état des savoirs (pp. 5-14). Paris: Ed. la Découverte.

Author Information

Mathilde de Greck

University of Geneva / Université de Genève

Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences

Geneva

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