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EDUCATION IN FRANCE
IFST-GA 3710
Fall 2017
Professor Frédéric Viguier
Office: Institute of French Studies, 2nd floor
Email:
Class Meeting: Wednesdays, 12:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m.
Institute of French Studies Classroom
Office hours: Wednesdays, 3:30p.m.-5:30 p.m.
Course description:
At a time when French journalists, intellectuals and politicians constantly discuss the crisis of education, this course’s goal is to provide you with theoretical, sociological and historical tools to understand and analyze the French educational system. We’ll investigate its history, its social hierarchies, its cultural influence, its policy and political consequences. In the spirit of the French “sciences sociales,” our exploration of education in France and the (former) French Empire will borrow from different disciplines – anthropology, history and sociology. You will therefore learn how these various disciplines approach the same topic.
The course will be organized in three parts. We will first situate the current French educational system in its historical context and examine the changing relationship of the French Republic with its educational institution. We will then delve into empirical and theoretical writings about inequalities of class, gender and race in French education. Finally, the third part of our course will engage with current key problems in French education, including the elitism of French pedagogy, educational inflation, and the postcolonial legacy of the French educational model.
Requirements:
- Participation in class discussion and close readings of the required primary and secondary sources (25% of the final grade). The success of this course relies on your attendance and active participation in class discussion and activities.Your participation in class discussion entails the close reading of the required sources. (The other texts listed in the syllabus are for your reference).
Each one of you will write a brief responseto the week’s required readings, to be emailed to me the previous evening (Tuesday) before 7:00 p.m. Length: 1 to 2 pages, maximum. This response doesn’t have to follow a specific format as long as it addresses the central arguments of the readings. You may summarize the texts, or compare them, or identify their blind spots. Your response will allow you to prepare for class discussion.
- Oral presentation(25% of the final grade).You will give a 15-minute oral presentation on a document (film, documentary film, memoir, literary work, etc.) related to the topic of one of the class meetings. I will hand out a list of possible topics and documents during the third meeting of our course.
- Final paper(50% of the final grade). Your main requirement is aresearch paper regarding education in France and/or the (former) French Empire. This paper must be between 5,000 and 6,000 words (footnotes and bibliography not included), about fifteen pages. You will select the subject in consultation with me and frame your own question about it. The deadlines below are firm:
Week of Oct. 30-Nov. 3: Individual meetings with me to determine the subject.
Nov. 21: Project description (2 pages) and annotated bibliography (1-2 pages). (10%)
Dec. 13: In-class oral presentation (10 minutes) of your topic, its relevance and your findings. (10%)
Dec. 15: First draft if you wish to receive my input. To be emailed to me by 7 p.m.
Dec. 20: Final draft. (30%). Email to me by 7 p.m.
Language: this course will be taught in English but many required readings are only available in French.
PART 1. FROM THE ECOLE REPUBLICAINE TO THE ECOLE DE LA DEMOCRATISATION
1) September 6 – Introduction: thinking historically and sociologically about education
2) September 13 – Education and the construction of the Republican nation-state
- Pierre Albertini, L’Ecole en France: XIXe-XXe siècle: de la maternelle à l’Université (Hachette, 2014): chapters 1, 2 & 6.
- Mona Ozouf, L’Ecole, l’Eglise et la République, 1871-1914 (A. Colin, 1963): chapter 2.
- Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: the Modernization of Rural France (Stanford University Press, 1976): chapter 18.
Other references:
- François Furet and Jacques Ozouf, Reading and Writing: Literacy in France from Calvin to Jules Ferry (Cambridge UP, 1982 [1977]): excerpts.
3) September 20 – The école de la République: an assessment
- Pierre Jakez Hélias, The Horse of Pride: Life in a Rural Breton Village (Yale University Press, 1978 [1975]): chapter 4.
- Jérôme Krop, La méritocratie républicaine. Elitisme et scolarisation de masse sous la IIIe République (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2014): introduction, chapter 3 and conclusion.
- Anne-Marie Thiesse, Ils apprenaient la France. L’exaltation des regions dans le discours patriotique (Editions de la MSH, 1997: introduction, chapter 3 and conclusion.
Other references:
- Jean-François Chanet, L’école républicaine et les petites patries (1996): excerpts.
- Jacques et Mona Ozouf, “Le tour de la France par deux enfants. Le petit livre rouge de la République,” in Pierre Nora (ed), Les lieux de mémoire, tome 1 (Gallimard, 1984).
4) September 27 – Complicating the national narrative: education in the French imperial Republic
- Jules François Camille Ferry, “Speech Before the French Chamber of Deputies, March 28, 1884,”Discours et Opinions de Jules Ferry,ed. Paul Robiquet (Paris: Armand Colin & Cie., 1897), translated by Ruth Kleinman in Brooklyn College Core Four Sourcebook.
- Inspector-General Albert Charton (1930), “The Social Function of Education in French West Africa”, inMumford W. Bryant, Africans Learn to be French: A Review of Educational Activities in the Seven Federated Colonies of French West Africa and Algiers Undertaken in 1935 (1935, Reprint, New York, Negro Universities Press, 1970).
- Kelly M. Duke Bryant, Education as Politics; Colonial Schooling and Political Debate in Senegal, 1850s-1914 (U. of Wisconsin Press, 2015).
Other reference:
- Marie Salaün, L’école indigène. Nouvelle Calédonie, 1885-1945, (Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2005)
5) October 4 – Massification or Democratization?
- Stéphane Beaud, 80% au Bac, et après? Les enfants de la démocratisation scolaire (La Découverte, 2002), Introduction, chapters 2 and 3.
- Antoine Prost, Education, société et politiques: une histoire de l’éducation depuis 1945 (Seuil, 1995): “La démocratisation de l’enseignement: histoire d’une notion”, Les paradoxes de la réforme des collèges”, “les mutations des lycées”.
PART 2. MAKING SENSE OF EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITIES IN A “MERITOCRATIC” SOCIETY
6) October 11 – Class, race and educational achievement
- Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron, The Inheritors: French Students and their Relations to Culture(Chicago University Press, 1979): chapter 1.
- Bernard Lahire, Tableaux de famille (Seuil, 1995): portrait to be determined.
- Smaïn Laacher, “L’école et ses miracles. Notes sur les déterminants sociaux des trajectoires scolaires des enfants des familles d’immigrés”, Politix, no12, vol. 3.
Other reference:
- Sandrine Garcia and Anne-Claudine Oller, Réapprendre à lire: de la querelle des methodes à l’action pédagogique (Seuil, 2015): excerpts.
7) October 18 –Female education: towards gender equality?
- Christian Baudelot, Roger Establet, Allez les filles! Une révolution silencieuse (Le Seuil, 2006, [1992]): Foreword, chapters 3, 6 and 7.
- Michèle Ferrand, “La mixité à dominance masculine: l’exemple des filières scientifiques de l’École normale supérieure d'Ulm-Sèvres,” in Rebecca Rodgers (ed.), La mixité dans l'éducation. Enjeux passés et présents (ENS Editions, 2004).
- Rebecca Rogers, From the Salon to the Schoolroom (Penn State UP, 2005): introduction and chapter 6.
8) October 25 – The making of educational excellence
- Pierre Bourdieu, State Nobility. Elite Schools in the Field of Power (Stanford university Press, 1996): chapters 1&2.
- Muriel Darmon, Classes préparatoires. La fabrique d’une jeunesse dominante (La Découverte, 2015): excerpts.
Other references:
- Wilfried Lignier, La petite noblesse de l’intelligence. Une sociologie des enfants surdoués(La Découverte, 2012).
- Fabien Truong and Gérôme Truc, “Studying in a prépa as surviving in hell: untold episodes from a mythical media tale,” The De Morgan Journal, vol. 2, no2, 1995.
9) November 1 – Educational inflation? From degrees to careers
- Milan Bouchet-Valat, Camille Peugny, and Louis-André Vallet, “Inequality of educational returns in France,” in Fabrizio Bernadi and Gabriele Ballarino (eds.), Education, Occupation and Social Origin (Elgar, 2016).
- Marie Duru-Bellat, L’inflation scolaire: les désillusions de la démocratie (Seuil, 2006): excerpts.
- Cédric Hugrée, “Le CAPES ou rien?” Parcours scolaires, aspirations sociales et insertions professionnelles du “haut” des enfants de la démocratisation scolaire,” Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, no. 183, 2010.
- Anne Lambert, “Le comblement inachevé des écarts sociaux,” Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, no. 183, 2010.
- Fabien Truong, Jeunesses françaises. Bac +5 made in banlieues (La Découverte, 2015): introduction and chapter 7.
PART 3. CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
10) November 8 – The Republican pedagogy and its discontents.
- Laurent Cantet, Entre les murs
- Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison (Vintage Books, 1995 [1975]): Introduction and Part 3, chapter 2 “The means of correct training.”
- François Jacquet-Francillon (ed.), Une histoire de l’école (Retz; 2010): notices 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 32, 33 and 39.
Other Reference:
Emile Durkheim, Evolution of French Educational Thought(Routledge, 1977 [1904-05, 1938])
11) November 15 – The teachers’ malaise
- Pierre Albertini, L’Ecole en France: XIXe-XXe siècle: de la maternelle à l’Université (Hachette, 2014): chapters 3, 9 and 13.
- Frédéric Sawicki, “Esquisse d’une sociologie politique des enseignants français,” Education et Sociétés, 2015/2, no. 36.
- Frédéric Viguier, “Maintaining the Class: Teachers in the New High Schools of the Banlieues,” French Politics, Culture and Society, vol. 24, no. 3, winter 2006: “The Lost Banlieues of the Republic?”
12) November 29 – Why French schools don’t like headscarves
- John Bowen, Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves. Islam, the State and Public Space (Princeton University Press, 2010): chapter 4 “Scarves and Schools”.
- Nathalie Kapko, L’Islam, un recours pour les jeunes (Presses de Sciences Po, 2007): chapter 2.
13) December 6– French Higher Education in Crisis?
- Stéphane Beaud, 80% au Bac, et après? Les enfants de la démocratisation scolaire (La Découverte, 2002): chapters 4, 5 &6.
Other References:
- Romuald Bodin and Sophie Orange, L’université n’est pas en crise (Le Croquant, 2013).
- Paul Pasquali, Passer les frontières sociales (Fayard, 2015).
14) December 13 – Conclusion and Presentation of Papers