Institutional pedagogy started in France during the period 1950-60. This pedagogy sprang from another pedagological movement, normally known as « Freinet pedagogy », from the name of its founder, Céléstin Freinet (1896- 1966). Some of the Parisian militant teachers of the Freinet movement were expelled from the Freinet movement at the beginning of the sixties. The founders of this new pedagological movement gradually took to writing monographs of pupils and institutions as a work form. This collective work on monographs, associating both teaching professionals and psychologists, has become an analytical method in classroom relations. This method is one of the sources for developing institutional pedagogy. This new pedagological movement, usually called institutional pedagogy, was born in France in the Paris region within the context of strong urban growth, with highly significant effects on the educational system. Célestin Freinet began teaching in 1919, when France was in its majority rural, since it was only at the end of the twenties that France counted an equal number of rural and urban inhabitants. Between 1900 and 1970 the rural share of the population continued to fall at the expense of the urban population. In 1954,the urban poulation represented 56% of the total population, 67.3% in 1962 and 70% in 1968. This growth in cities particularly affected the urban area of Paris , from 5.8 million inhabitants in 1946 to 7.7 million in 1962. This considerable growth had inevitable influence on schools. The Parisian teachers of the Freinet movement were quick to point out this effect, since the group in this region had both rural and urban class teachers as members in the fifties. The teachers in the immediate suburbs live daily the effects of accelerating urban growth.

Within this context, resorting progressively to pupil monographs allows teachers to learn more about their pupils in an urban environment dominated by anonymity. Institutional pedagogy then develops in two different directions, one of which can be called « psychoanalytical » in so far as it refers specifically to psychoanalysis. This trend, structured around Fernand Oury (1920-1998) and Aïda Vasquez, aims to take more into account the subjectivity of pupils in an urban school, accused by them to be a « barracks school ». Paying attention to subjectivity and the study of subconscious processes in an educational institution can be related to the transformation of educational structures influenced by urban growth : the first mass effect, class over- expansion, lack of adaptation for teacher training etc.

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