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A Pedagogical Turn in French Teacher Training The Case of the History and Geography CAPES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2017

Christian Delacroix
Christian Delacroix*
Affiliation:
Université de ParisEst/Marne-la-Vallée (UPEM) Laboratoire EA 3350 Analyse comparée des pouvoirs
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Abstract

The “scientific” and “educational” questions raised by the relationship between research and the teaching of history have returned to the spotlight with the current reform of teacher training in France. Undertaken as part of the “Refounding the School System” project initiated in 2012 by minister of education Vincent Peillon, this reform accords a central place to pedagogical approaches and “professionalization.” This article analyzes some of the issues at stake in this “pedagogical turn” for the training of history and geography teachers, particularly with regard to renewed questions about the social function of history and the recurrent challenges and reservations on the part of academic historians about binding the notions of “scientific” and “educational” together.

Type
Historical Research and History Teaching in Secondary Schools
Information
Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales - English Edition , Volume 70 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 185 - 197
Copyright
Copyright © Les Éditions de l’EHESS 2015

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References

1. Leduc, Jean, “L’épreuve sur dossier du CAPES de 1994 à 2009,” Cahiers d’histoire immédiate 37–38 (2010): 319–36 Google Scholar, http://crheh.hypotheses.org/110.

2. Bloch, Marc and Febvre, Lucien, “Pour le renouveau de l’enseignement historique,” Annales d’histoire économique et sociale 9, no. 2 (1937): 113–29 Google Scholar.

3. On the topic of the Annales and the teaching of history, see Dumoulin, Olivier, “Les Annales d’histoire économique et sociale face au problème de l’enseignement de l’histoire,” special issue, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine (1984): 19–30 Google Scholar.

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5. Present author’s archives.

6. Delacroix, Christian and Garcia, Patrick, “L’inflexion patrimoniale: l’enseignement de l’histoire au risque de l’identité,” Espaces Temps 66/67 (1998): 111–36 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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8. It must be added that, depending on the university and the discipline, the academic community is more or less involved in the preparation (when it exists) of the teacher recruitment examinations; some professors, for instance, are less willing than others to undertake this (daunting) task. Moreover, with the history and geography CAPES, differences in the disciplinary cultures are a further differentiating factor: academic geographers tend to be less available to participate in the preparation of the examinations than historians. All these elements (which, for want of “empirical” research into these questions, are not clearly understood) further complicate the tension between the academic and the pedagogical.

9. Vincent Duclert, “Le nouveau Capes histoire-géographie: rappel des principaux éclairages sur les épreuves d’admissibilité et d’admission,” explanatory note no. 3 (December 10, 2013), http://www.cndp.fr/portails-disciplinaires/fileadmin/user_upload/histoire_geo/PDF/Note_d_orientation_n_3_FINAL_FINAL.pdf.

10. Duclert, examiners’ report, “Concours du second degré. Capes externes. Section: Histoire-Géographie. Session 2014 rénovée,” p. 17, http://cache.media.education. gouv.fr/file/capes_ext/56/9/RAPPORT_JURY_CAPES_HIST_-_GEO_-_SESSION_2014_Renove_346569.pdf.

11. The examiners’ report is in fact a combination of several contributions: the chairperson is the main author, but other members also write parts of the document (the section on the second oral test, for example, is drawn up by two of the test’s examiners). This explains the differences in interpretation that can be detected in the various contributions, for instance concerning the link between the academic and the pedagogical elements. Even if the overall responsibility for the report lies with the chairperson, he or she cannot completely “control” (or “censure”) what the other contributors—themselves under the responsibility of their respective vice-chairpersons—write. The drafting of the report via this subtle process (or circuit, to borrow the term used by Patricia Legris), which translates informally the state of the intellectual consensus and thus the power relationships within the examining board, is difficult to decipher and remains practically invisible to readers of the report.

12. Christian Delacroix, François Dosse, and Patrick Garcia, “La professionnalisation incantatoire comme panacée pour la formation des enseignants ?,” open letter addressed to Vincent Peillon, Minister of Education, Carnet du réseau historiographie et épistémologie de l’histoire, January 2013, http://crheh.hypotheses.org/78.

13. The common core of knowledge and skills, enshrined in Law no. 2005-380 of April 23, 2005, a revised version of which was published in 2014. See the largely positive presentation of this legislation in Vincent Capdepuy and Laurence De Cock, “Satisfecit à propos du nouveau socle,” Aggiornamento hist-geo, June 30, 2014, http://aggiornamento.hypotheses.org/2181.

14. See Legris, Patricia, “On n’enseigne plus l’histoire à nos enfants ! Retour sur la polémique de l’enseignement de l’histoire en France au tournant des années 1970-1980,” in Barroche, Julien, Bouëdec, Nathalie Le, and Pons, Xavier, eds., Les figures de l’État éducateur. Pour une approche pluridisciplinaire (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2008), 197–224 Google Scholar.

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20. Delacroix and Garcia, “L’inflexion patrimoniale.”

21. Patricia Legris, “La marginalisation des universitaires,” in Legris, “L’écriture des programmes d’histoire en France,” 160–73.

22. Braudel, Fernand, L’histoire au quotidien (Paris: Éd. de Fallois, 2001), 120 Google Scholar, cited in Legris, “L’écriture des programmes d’histoire en France,” 173.

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24. Jacomino, Baptiste, “La controverse française sur l’école: essai de cartographie,” Le philosophoire 33, no. 1 (2010): 57–70 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a critical viewpoint on the “anti-pedagogical” tradition see Kahn, Pierre, “La critique du ‘pédagogisme’ ou l’invention du discours de l’autre,” Les sciences de l’éducation. Pour l’Ère nouvelle 39, no. 4 (2006): 81–98 Google Scholar.

25. See in particular Lautier, Nicole, À la rencontre de l’histoire (Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 1997)Google Scholar and Cariou, Didier, Écrire l’histoire scolaire. Quand les élèves écrivent en classe pour apprendre l’histoire (Rennes: PUR, 2012)Google Scholar.

26. Allieu-Mary, Nicole, “De l’histoire des chercheurs à l’histoire scolaire,” in Develay, Michel, ed., Savoirs scolaires et didactiques des disciplines: une encyclopédie pour aujourd’hui (Paris: ESF éditeur, 1995) 123–61, here pp. 143–44Google Scholar.

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29. Cited in Legris, “L’écriture des programmes d’histoire en France,” 96.

30. It should be noted that academics regularly participate in the writing of secondary-school textbooks.

31. Akrich, Madeleine, Callon, Michel, and Latour, Bruno, Sociologie de la traduction. Textes fondateurs (Paris: Presses des Mines, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32. Lantheaume, Françoise, “Solidité et instabilité du curriculum d’histoire en France: accumulation de ressources et allongement des réseaux,” Éducation et sociétés 12, no. 2 (2003): 125–42 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On these points, see the article by Laurence De Cock in this issue of the Annales .