Media education is somehow « the ability to access, understand and create communications in a variety of contexts (Buckingham, 2006). Critical thinking is indispensable in our information society. There is a lot of research (Piette, 1996, Sarmiento, 1999, Brouwers, 2009) about different mediatic objects at school: newspapers, TV, radio and the Internet but rarely has it aimed at exploring the complex process of education itself. It’s the reason why we wanted to initiate an in- depth study about teachers’ practices in media education. We have worked under a program untitled « classes-presse ». Students in French lower-secondary classes (Grade 8 and 9) received a newspaper every day and wrote press articles on line. During the time of data collecting, I was a teacher and used this program with my pupils. Bulterman-Bos (2008, p. 419) writes : « because researchers are not engaged with students, they do not develop the appropriate tools for perceiving education ». He compares with medical studies : « In clinical research practice, thus, the role of the analytical, intellectual, universal, and theoretical is self-evident, but so too is the role of the normative, the personal, the particular, and the experiential ».

We refer to the « joint action» theory in didactics to describe didactical situations (Sensevy, Mercier & Schubauer-Leoni, 2000; Sensevy & Mercier 2007). Ordinary sessions and interviews (between the researcher and teachers) were videotaped, transcribed and analysed. Gonnet (2001) considered than actuality is an “active agent of education change. We postulate that media education is characterized by high uncertainty level and danger of dogmatic knowledge construction through teacher and/or media influence instead of rational inquiry.

The semiosis process shows situations where uncertainty causes disorientation for students and even with experienced teachers.

The first objective of our study was to make visible different parts of uncertainty. The second objective was to make expressible uncertainty categories.

Afterwards, we have set a cooperative didactics design to better describe and understand the knowledge actually implemented. We have chosen this form of design to differentiate ourselves from the classical pattern denounced by Chevallard, in mathematics, as early as 1985 as underlined by Leutenegger (1999, p.212). «Study the world as-it-should-be to the detriment of the study of world-as-it-is».

- Bulterman-Bos, J-A. (2008). Will a clinical approach make research more relevant for practice ? Educational Researcher, 37, 412 - 420. - Chevallard, Y. (1985/1991). La transposition didactique : du savoir savant au savoir enseigné. Grenoble : La Pensée sauvage. - Kerneis, J (2009). Analyse didactique et communicationnelle de l’éducation aux medias : éléments d’une grammaire de l’incertitude. Thèse de Sciences de l'Éducation, Université Rennes 2. CREAD (Centre de recherche sur l'éducation, les apprentissages et la didactique). [en ligne] : http://classespresse.pbworks.com/f/These20092912.pdf - Kerneis, J. (2010, à paraître). Désorientation des élèves et indécision du professeur : deux formes d’incertitude repérées en éducation aux médias. Carrefours de l’éducation. - Lemoine, M. (2005). D’une démarche professionnelle à une démarche scientifique : filiation puis autonomie de la recherche sur un terrain familier. Sciences de l’éducation pour l’ère nouvelle, 38 (1), 109-120 - Leutenegger, F. (1999). Construction d’une « clinique » pour le didactique, une étude des phénomènes temporels de l’enseignement. Recherches en Didactique des mathématiques, 20 (2),.209-250. - Merisuo-Storm, T. & Soininen, M.. Sixth grade pupils reading printed and online newspapers. European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), Wien, 28 au 30 septembre 2009. - Nédellec-Trohel, I. (2008). Roles of the researcher in a didactic device. European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), Göteborg, 10 au 12 septembre 2008. - Sensevy, G. & Mercier, A. (2007). Agir ensemble : l'action conjointe du professeur et des élèves. Rennes : Presses Universitaires de Rennes. - Sensevy, G. Gruson, B., Marlot, C. & Santini, J. (2008). The joint Action theory in Didactics. Introducing the approach. European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), Göteborg, 10 au 12 septembre 2008. - Wittgenstein, L. (1969). On certainty. London : Harper Perennial.