Maroussia Raveaud paper delivered at BERA 12/9/2003
Differentiated learning in French and English primary schools:
the child, the pupil and the citizen
Abstract
This paper explores the influence of national context on teaching and learning. It focuses on attitudes towards and the use of differentiation in French and English primary schools. It rests on ethnographic observations in twelve key stage 1 classrooms located in socially disadvantaged areas. Observations were carried out for two weeks in each class between 1998 and 2001. The first section examines the historical and political factors that shaped the mission of schools in England and France, and their impact on current pedagogical choices in terms of differentiated teaching. Whereas differentiation is widely used and often taken for granted in England, it sits uncomfortably with French egalitarian ideals. The second section focuses on the field research. Differentiation by task was systematic in the English sample but practically non-existent in the French classes. The contrasts between French and English teaching practice are then analysed in relation to culturally situated conceptions of learning, of self-esteem and the notion of failure. These notions are given subtly different meanings by teachers either side of the Channel. Ultimately, pedagogical practice relays divergent conceptions of a pupil's identity as a learner, related to broader social and cultural conceptions of the individual's place in society.
Introduction
This paper explores the influence of national context on teaching and learning. It draws on classroom observations and interviews in French and English schools and examines how attitudes towards differentiation in each country are informed by conceptions of learning, underpinned by deeply rooted social, cultural and political aspirations for schools.
Following Durkheim, we consider education as a process that brings a child in contact with one particular society, not with society in general:
When one studies historically the way in which education systems have been formed and developed, it is apparent that they depend on religion, political organisation, the degree of scientific development, the state of the industry, etc. If one detaches them from all these historical causes, they become incomprehensible. Educational institutions are social institutions. (Durkheim, 1977: 42)
It follows that schools need to be studied within their national context, for schooling varies greatly according to time and place. As Sir Michael Sadler, the father of comparative education in Britain put it:
school problems… are only seen in their true perspective when they are regarded as being in necessary and constant relation to other forms of social culture. The educational question is not a question by itself. It is a part of the social question. (1902: 23).
Educational institutions are deeply rooted within a social culture. It follows that children’s experience of school varies across cultures. When children go to school, they encounter ways of thinking, feeling and behaving and integrate the norms of the society they belong to (Bernstein, 1971a). This socialisation process varies according to many factors such as gender, social class, religious creed or ethnicity. Here we focus on the cultural factor by comparing educational practice cross-nationally, in England and France.
In this paper we begin by examining some historical and political factors that have shaped the mission of schools either side of the Channel, and that underlie current pedagogical choices in terms of differentiated teaching. The second section examines classroom practice using empirical data from an ethnographic comparative research in French and English primary schools (Raveaud, 2003). It is followed by some thoughts on notions of self-esteem and failure. We conclude by considering the benefits of qualitative cross-cultural research.
The mission of primary education yesterday and today
Although education systems are constantly on the move, they also bear the legacy the past. Understanding the origins of the French and English mass education systems helps to make sense of current attitudes and values which may not always be consciously held.
The French national system of elementary education, which developed in the 19th century, was based on pre-revolutionary structures developed by the Church that were adapted to Republican ideology. Its core mission was to form citizens who should be committed to their nation, develop their ability to think rationally and make good use of their right to vote in order to make democracy sustainable. The French Revolution fought against the Church and more generally against those social institutions and hierarchies which were considered to hold the common man in subjection and prevent him from exercising his judgement and free will. Mass elementary schooling was to be the key in bringing about freedom and fairness in society. As men and women gained access to knowledge, it was expected that they would no longer need to turn to their ‘betters’ (the clergy, the bourgeoisie) and would thus be freed from their undue influence. For Condorcet, the author of one of the seminal plans for public schooling set out during the French Revolution, ‘the supposed stupidity, born of enslavement and humiliation, will soon disappear, as free men make knowledge the means of breaking the last and most shameful of their fetters’ (1792).
It took a century for this vision to be implemented. When elementary education was made free, compulsory and secular by the Jules Ferry laws of 1881 and 1882, the rationale for the new public institution was to emancipate man by giving him access to knowledge: liberating knowledge (le savoir libérateur) became its keystone. Attachment to this idea is still very widely expressed amongst policy makers of all sympathies and by many teachers. For instance, the preamble to the 2002 primary curriculum explicitly refers back to 19th century educational and political ideals:
Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, primary education must remain faithful to the great inspiration of the Republican school: offering all children equal opportunities and a successful integration in French society. (Ministère de l’Education Nationale, 2002: 46)
Traditionally, the ideal of equal opportunities has led to a highly prescriptive national curriculum. The education system was strongly centralised, in the intention of avoiding discrepancies in educational provision throughout the country, across social class divisions and between individual pupils. Until 1991, any pupil who had not acquired the learning outcomes set out for their level by the end of the year was held back and had to repeat the year. Since then, as a result of the 1989 Loi d’orientation, greater flexibility has been introduced, allowing a degree of decentralisation, of autonomy at school level and less rigid planning for pupils’ progression. Three yearly cycles (the French equivalent of key stages) have been introduced: the curriculum is no longer set out in yearly stages but for each cycle, the intention being to allow each child greater leeway to learn at their own pace. Officially, the only year in which pupils can now be held back is the final year of each cycle. This is meant to allow for different learning rhythms, while ultimately maintaining the requirement that all children should be making progress at approximately the same speed. Indeed, common targets continue to be seen as the basis for equality of opportunity:
The cycles constitute the national framework within which teachers organise their teaching by taking into account each pupil’s pace of learning. (Ministère de l’Education Nationale, Loi d’orientation du 10 juillet 1989, article5)
While France developed its Republican school system, elementary education in England was in the hands of charities, voluntary organisations and religious bodies. For most of these, habits of obedience, hygiene, morality and belief in God were more important than learning per se. From the turn of the century the ethos of the public school, with its emphasis on character building, came to influence the state sector: strengthening the body, mind and soul of each individual became part of the mission of primary education, in addition to that of forming religious, law-abiding and hardworking adults. During the course of the twentieth century, new influences were to transform the aims of education, mainly the development of psychology and pedagogical reformers such as Froebel, Dewey, Montessori and A.S.Neill. ‘Child-centred’ ideals developed, with the education of the whole child as its creed, and a requirement that schools should strive not only for the intellectual, but also the physical, moral, social and emotional development of the pupils entrusted to them. The Plowden report, considered as the ‘bible’ of a generation of primary teachers, redefined the primary school and its missions. In lieu of the pupil, it famously declared: ‘At the heart of the educational process lies the child’ (CACE, 1967: 7). This led to greater emphasis on individual children’s interests and needs. Amongst other things, it favoured systematic differentiation in teaching:
Teachers will have to adapt their methods to individuals within a class or school. Only in this way can the needs of gifted and slow learning children and all those between the extremes be met. (CACE, 1967: 460)
Since 1988, government reforms have shifted the focus towards achievement and standards. The statement of values introducing the national curriculum includes both a broad view of education and narrower, more instrumental goals:
Foremost is a belief in education, at home and at school, as a route to the spiritual, moral, social, cultural, physical and mental development, and thus the well-being, of the individual. Education is also a route to equality of opportunity for all, a healthy and just democracy, a productive economy, and sustainable development. (DfEE/QCA, 1999: 10)
‘Equality of opportunity’ is mentioned here, but is not taken to mean identical treatment for all. On the contrary, national policy in England indirectly endorses differentiation as appears from the way attainment targets are set. The ‘expected attainment for the majority of pupils at the end of the key stage’ is expressed as a level in a scale ranging from 1 to 8. It is significant however that these targets should have been completed by a ‘range of levels within which the great majority of pupils are expected to work’ so as to encompass a broader range of attainment. The range of attainment is in fact so wide that a high achieving seven year-old is expected to reach the same level (i.e. level3) as a low-achieving pupil twice that age.
Figure 1. National curriculum attainment targets and level descriptions
End of key stage target / age 7 (KS 1) / age 11 (KS 2) / age14 (KS 3)Expected attainment for the majority of pupils at the end of the key stage / 2 / 4 / 5-6
Range of levels within which the great majority of pupils are expected to work / 1 to 3 / 2 to 5 / 3 to 7
Source: DfEE/QCA, 1999: 17
The reforms of the late 1980s appear to have brought the French and English primary education systems closer together: France has decentralised while England introduced central control; the French curriculum endorses the idea of flexibility in pupils’ progression whereas English targets and testing suggest that children of the same age should have comparable attainments. Yet in spite of the evolutions of the last 15 years, historical influences continue to shape educational practice today either side of the Channel. Ongoing reforms as well as wider trends of globalisation may be bringing the two education systems a step closer. However children’s experience of school in both countries is still shaped by the contrasting missions of the school systems to which they belong (Broadfoot et al., 2000, Alexander 2000). Both countries are strongly committed to giving each child access to knowledge and skills, but while this aim has political undertones of emancipation and social justice in France, the emphasis in England lies on respecting and valuing the individual and developing the full potential of each child. Conceptions of teaching and learning either side of the Channel are underpinned by these divergent social, cultural and political aspirations for schools.
To differentiate or not to differentiate
A common characteristic of primary classes in England and France is the wide range of attainment among pupils. Forming classes according to ability or attainment is illegal in France; classes are usually mixed in ability in English primary schools although children may be in sets for specific subjects at certain times (Osborn et al., 2000). Teachers faced with such a range of attainment have to strike a balance between respecting the needs and characteristics of individual children on the one hand, and pursuing common learning goals set out in nationally agreed curricula on the other. The French and English education systems provide different strategies for doing so. Differentiation is one such strategy. By differentiation, we mean the process by which teachers adapt curriculum objectives, teaching methods, learning activities, resources and assessment to match the educational needs of individual pupils. Learning can be differentiated in many ways: by curriculum structure, course content, learning tasks, teaching approach, pace of learning, support, outcome and assessment. This paper focuses mainly on differentiation by task.
This section rests on ethnographic research in twelve classrooms in England and France. Between 1998 and 2001, I carried out observations in classes of four to seven-year-olds in socially disadvantaged areas for two weeks each. The English classes corresponded to key stage1 (reception, year1 and year2). In France, the younger pupils belonged to the école maternelle (nursery) classes of moyenne section(MS) and grande section(GS), and to the first year of compulsory primary education called cours préparatoire (CP). The observations were completed by semi-structured interviews with teachers and head teachers. Samples of pupils’ work were also collected, as well as documentation at school, local authority and national level.