Authority at college comes via a social and academic contract reasonably than a repressive one | EUROtoday

“You break, you repair. You dirty, you clean. You challenge authority, you are taught to respect it. » Gabriel Attal made this sentence, pronounced the first time during his general policy speech at the end of January, and a second time, in Viry-Châtillon (Essonne), for his hundred days at Matignon, in mid-April, the one of the slogans of his action. THE “surge of authority” that the Prime Minister calls for within the face of the violence of sure adolescents requires schooling. But, even when he speaks of“school of civics” or authority like “condition of emancipation”, Mr. Attal locations himself virtually solely within the repressive area. It focuses on the sanctions to be carried out, beginning in main faculty, or on a word to be positioned within the Parcoursup file of a disruptive scholar. A communication technique that has all of the makings of political calculation just a few weeks earlier than the European elections, the place the far proper is given the favourite within the polls.

On the facet of academic actors, the stability of energy that the previous Minister of National Education desires to determine with younger individuals “on the wrong slope” irritates and worries. “This vision risks having the opposite effect to that expected and creating an even greater gap between educator and educated. Authority is based on a relationship of trust to be established between the teacher and the student”choose Marie Beretti, teacher-researcher in academic sciences at Jean-Monnet-Saint-Etienne University.

Demanding authority that they know is consubstantial with the act of educating, lecturers retain a definition aside from that of Gabriel Attal. Bruno Robbes, professor of academic sciences at Cergy-Paris University and specialist on the topic, explains it: “Authority has nothing to do with authoritarianism, which views the educational relationship in a domination-submission relationship. The influence of the one who holds the authority is due precisely to the fact that the one over whom it is exercised agrees to obey, because he recognizes his interest in it. This is how its legitimacy is based. »

“Old refrain”

From this angle, requiring college students to face up when a instructor arrives, because the Prime Minister needs, seems to be a beauty measure, and even an illusory treatment. Educational authority is constructed over time and with expertise. The coaching requested by lecturers, even skilled ones, demonstrates their want to research their practices on this topic, whereas the time allotted to this in preliminary coaching has been lowered over the course of the reforms.

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