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Conference

English

ID: <

10670/1.frkh56

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Teachers’ Professional Socialization in Private and Public Secondary Schools : A Comparative Study.

Abstract

International audience The presentation reports on an ethnographic study of teachers in private and public secondary schools in Brittany, France. To date, this issue has not been extensively explored qualitatively (Tapernoux, 2001) and most studies follow a quantitative and macrosociological methodology (Reddy, 1994; Jaboin, 2003). The French school system is made up of two sectors of education: the public or secular sector and the private sector in which the catholic faith schools represent ninety-five percent. Structural modifications have changed the double schooling system and the place of each sector in French society (Poucet, 2009). Since the 1950s, private education has undergone major institutional transformations which have brought it closer to public education, especially with the promulgation of the 1959 law, known as the “loi Debré”, which provides for a state contract: private education is identified as a “private service of public utility”. The mission of private schooling gradually changed in the 80s: though its main vocation remained religious instruction, it was being used more and more as a “second chance” by parents of pupils encountering difficulties in public schools (Prost, 1982), less and less as catholic schools. Reasons of geographical proximity or teachers’ availability also explain the choice of schools by families (Langouët & Léger, 1997). The association of private education with the State grows since the 1990s, and teachers are at the heart of this dynamic. With the recent Censi law (2005), teachers in private schools become “public agents”.Our research questions the similarities and differences of professional socialization of teachers from public and private secondary schools with a particular focus on the effects of the context (van Zanten, 2001; Kherroubi, 2003; Hofman, Hofman, & Gray, 2008), and specifically how each sector differentially shapes teachers’ careers, examine levels and forms of social relations, and how the internal organization of education, through notably the "relational styles", influence professional socialization (Dubar, 2005). Our methodology seeks to study the lived professional experience of teachers and analyze the logic behind the functioning of each sector of education in Brittany. The fieldwork takes place in four secondary schools of different sizes located either in the country, or in urban environment. The data collection consists firstly of observations in school spaces (classroom, playground, staff room...) and secondly of interviews with sixteen teachers and four school principals. The ethnographer goes into school space during one school year. The immersion into the school actors’ daily life enables the researcher to find support, confidants, and informants (Woods, 1990; Reed-Danahay, 2007). In-depth interviews shed light on the actors explain their actions, their daily activities, their relationships with the other people. Also, these two bodies of data enable us to create links between the actors’ declarations and their practices. About the analysis of data collection, we use the software NVivo 8 and we make a thematic (definition of profession, schooling for example) and selective coding (by sector, school, gender…). The repetition of some expressions, of some words, of some practices is an indicator of the actors’ experience.The institutional rapprochement of the two sectors produces favorable conditions for making public and private teachers’ careers more similar. But the sectoral context, private or public, creates a particular environment. Beyond their individual characteristics and singular experiences, each sector influences teachers’ professional socialization. Teachers in private schools develop the experiential knowledge, while teachers in public schools develop the theoretical knowledge. Each sector is a “world”, with a universe of rules, norms, representations, speeches and practices. This combination of elements can explain a community model for the private sector and a civic model for the public sector (Derouet, 1992). Relationships with peer group and students prove central in defining the professional experience of teachers.

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