Professionalisation des enseignants et sciences de l'éducation

Abstract

This article examines the history of educational sciences in relation with the process of professionalization of teaching and the changing patterns of state action in the field of education. The empirical work has been conducted in Southwestern Europe (France, Portugal, and Spain), but my purpose is to build a theoretical explanation that can be helpful to other contexts. Through an analysis of three different periods (1880s, 1920s, and 1960s), I intend to show that the formation of the educational sciences causes the exclusion of practice as the basis for pedagogical knowledge. At the turn of the 19th century, it consecrates the superiority of the expert regarding the teacher, and entails new regulations in the educational arena. In the 1960s, the educational expansion establishes new relationships between the state, the civil society and the academic world, introducing important changes in teacher education and professionalization. Teachers are defined as a corps that needs to be managed and controlled at state and university levels. The recent development of the educational sciences needs to be understood under this light.