The diversity of theoretical references is constitutive of the field of education and training sciences. In this discipline, a sociological conception of education has long prevailed, targeting an individual who is conscious and determined by his habitus, by dispositions characteristic of his social and cultural origin. Inequalities from birth are said to be reproduced by educational institutions, in particular by the school. Didactics, for its part, has developed a fairly abstract vision of the learner as an epistemic subject, centred on his cognitive functioning. It was not until relatively recently that the subject was granted agentivity, a capacity to act, to be a social actor from a very young age. Or to see him attributed, under the influence of psychology, emotions, self-esteem, even an affective life.
When we mobilise psychoanalysis as a central reference, combined with a clinical approach that weaves together subjectivity and the social-historical moment, we distance ourselves from these dominant conceptions. The encounter between psychoanalysis and education is indeed a troublemaker, especially when thought of in its time. Our approach aims to account for the encounter between adult and child, between professional and learner, and the influence of the peer group, in a configuration that is always singular; it aims to account for subjectivity, for the experience of the Subject. In the same movement of knowledge, it is a question of taking into account the involvement, the counter-transference of a researcher subject in his research object. Several authors have already developed this point and, among the most recent, let us quote a contribution by Claudine Blanchard-Laville (2019) to which we fully subscribe.
For all that, psychoanalysis in the field of education and training does not constitute a homogeneous reading, a new theoretical ecumenism, proceeding in a cumulative way or by compilation. It should be even less a doxa. The interpretations of contemporary educational phenomena are diverse, multiple, as is the understanding of what would be the cause or origin of them. A single example from our work is the question of the 'crisis of education', perceived as the failure of educational institutions (Lebrun), blamed on a 'crisis of authority' equivalent for some Lacanians to a foreclosure of the 'Name-of-the-Father' (Melman, Winter, etc.). The idea of decline is flourishing, referring to an idealised past and to well-identified educational and parental functions in a patriarchal system. However, there is every reason to believe, with Arendt, but also with a transgenerational and not exclusively Oedipal psychoanalytical reading, that education is in crisis as a transmission and link between generations, between old and newcomers (Gavarini, 2023). These interpretations and readings bear witness to the diversity of positions and currents of thought, of the ruptures, which have marked the history of the encounter between psychoanalysis and education, and between psychoanalysis and society. It is hardly possible today to speak of the place of psychoanalysis and erase the rough edges of this diversity. We have inherited a turbulent history and our intellectual work consists in bearing witness to it, just as the psychic work of the cure bears witness to the conflicts and misunderstandings to which we have been exposed or of which we have been the subjects.
This observation of a great diversity of psychoanalytical readings leads us to understand how we ourselves use psychoanalysis: what uses, what precautions, what ethics? These questions also lead us to reflect on the conditions necessary to think / theorise from the singularity of situations apprehended by the clinic.

Based on two studies, we wish to show the diversity of possible interpretations of educational situations involving subjects, professionals and adolescents, but also the resistance and defence mechanisms we experience with regard to this diversity, what we can or cannot hear, observe and interpret as researchers. The first research focuses on the experiences of adolescent girls in public spaces and their elaboration in collectives. The second research, as part of a broader study on school drop-out, brought to light a related problem: that of so-called disruptive pupils, who are the subject of 'incident reports' written by their teachers and collected by the school administration for the purpose of sanction (Hilbold & Gavarini, 2022). By combining qualitative empirical research methods (observations, interviews) with devices for elaborating the researcher's position (field diary, correspondence, time for elaborative exchanges in collective research, taking into account the 'aftermath' of the research, etc.), we understand research in its "bricolage" dimension (Lévi-Strauss), emphasising the listening to singularity made possible by the apprehension of the relationships in research (Gavarini, 2007): we assume moments of total incomprehension (Hilbold, 2022), however uncomfortable they may be, which seem to us to be the best sign of authentic research. The phenomena of identification that arose, for example, during interviews with secondary school girls, bringing up affects from the researchers' past adolescence, initially hindered the apprehension of otherness and singularity, but this apparent obstacle was also a necessary step in the analysis of the relationship between the researchers and the students. Despite the discomfort that this can produce in us, the clinical approach pushes us to seize the impromptu, the enigmatic that arise in research. Thus, we conducted two interviews with a teacher in a so-called 'difficult' secondary school. She entrusted us with a thick confidential file on a class of which she had been the referent teacher. A transferential link was woven between her and us, symbolically obliging us not to throw away this waste that she had initially intended for the dustbin. The “incident reports” it contained, however diverse they may be, pinpoint pupils in their diversity, in their deviations from a norm that is always implicit, disrupting the school order. We think that diversity does not belong to the sole relationship of the teachers to their pupils and also operates in our complex relationship to this order and in our identifications with the pupils and with some of the teachers.

The psychoanalytical reading of contemporary educational issues, as long as it frees itself from any normative temptation and from a psychopathologisation of behaviour and practices, and does not set itself up as expert knowledge, remains subversive. Psychoanalysis can be renewed on the condition that it allows itself to be affected, modified and diversified by contemporary educational challenges. These challenges are reflected even in the clinic, and are manifested, for example, in the relationship we have with "educators", professionals, parents, but also children and adolescents. The central issue is to deal with the risk of this particular clinic of the subject in an educational and institutional situation, to confront its negativity and to deal with the uncertainty inherent in the diversity of practices and subjectivities. A question arises: how to build reflexive research devices that allow us to apprehend the social-historical situation of which we are also a part, from an ever-renewed angle. We will therefore show how our research is enriched by diversity, on the condition that we make explicit the aspects that we seek to highlight. We understand diversity on three levels: whether we bring the notion of diversity closer to the dimension of heterogeneity, or even to the concept of "Collective" (J. Oury), in the work of elaborating the research data. It should be specified that this work does not aim at coherence or consensus but, on the contrary, at welcoming otherness or “othering” (becoming other); or that we apply this notion of diversity to the theoretical apparatus we mobilise, from psychoanalysis to gender studies, via critical sociology and philosophy; or, finally, that we bring to light the diversity in the meanings attributed to the singular speeches and acts collected in the research fields.

Blanchard-Laville, C. (2019). Le pari de la clinique d’orientation psychanalytique en sciences de l’éducation. Dans B. Mabilon-Bonfils et C. Delory-Momberger (dir.), À quoi servent les sciences de l’éducation ? (p. 95-105). Paris : ESF. Gavarini, L. (2007). Le contre-transfert comme rapport de places : revisiter la question de l’implicationdu chercheur. Actualité de la Recherche en Education et en Formation, Strasbourg. Consulté à l’adresse http://www.congresintaref.org/actes_pdf/AREF2007_Laurence_GAVARINI_462.pdf Gavarini, L. & Hilbold, M. (à paraître). Psychanalyse et éducation, une rencontre toujours incertaine? Le Carnet Psy. Gavarini, L. (2023, à paraître). L’éducation est-elle en crise ou est-elle crise?Une relecture d’Arendt. Le Télémaque. Hilbold, M. & Gavarini, L. (2022). Ordre et désordres scolaires, les enseignants à l’heure des “incidents” dans la classe. In Gavarini, L., Ottavi, D., Pirone, I. (2022). Le normal et le pathologique à l’école aujourd’hui. Saint-Denis : Presses universitaires de Vincennes. Hilbold, M. (2022). Hearing without understanding: listening to the singular in educational psychoanalytically based research. Special Call: Education and Psychoanalysis. European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), European Educational Research Association (EERA), Yerevan. Oury, J. (2005). Le Collectif: Le Séminaire de Sainte-Anne. Champ social. https://doi.org/10.3917/chaso.ouryj.2005.01