Publish at March 11 2019 Updated November 08 2022
For more than 50 years, sociologists have been questioning school inequalities, which often reproduce social inequalities and lead them to be perpetuated between generations. In a book recently published and through numerous contributions available on the Internet, Julien Netter gives us some explanations and some ways out, through the concept of "invisible curriculum".
In 1964 and then in1970, Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron published in turn Les Héritiers and La reproduction. They show the role of family and school in the transmission of inequalities between generations. Language, attitudes, behavior behavior, relational ease but also cultural tastes are all transmitted by the family transmitted by the family are as many assets for children from privileged backgrounds the academic success of children from working-class backgrounds. from working-class backgrounds. This cultural capital in the broad sense is more important in success than financial capital or inherited wealth.
Following this work, other authors, such as Marie Duru-Bellat have shown that merit, i.e., the set of skills that one mobilizes in a given work context, is the result of social learning largely linked to one's background. This highly valued notion of "merit" is thus sometimes opposed to social justice.
The proposed activities, the questions, the exchanges with the students are based on the assumption that we share the same culture, the same language, the same understanding of expectations. However, this is not the case; the instructions are based on expectations that are often understood and assimilated by only a portion of the students, often from more privileged backgrounds.
Yet these expectations will not always be explained, so much so that they seem to be taken for granted by the teachers. There is therefore a misunderstanding.
"The school expects something of the children that it is not going to give them. In particular, it expects a relationship to culture and language that it does not explain.
The researcher then studies the education that teachers give to their own children, and discovers that they ask many questions to which they know the answer. From the very first moments of life, when an infant cries, when he shows emotion, his parents will ask. "Are you hungry?", "Are you tired?".
This mode of communication continues from infancy to childhood, and seems natural when it extends into school life. When the same interviewer observes other families, she finds that this habit of asking questions to stimulate children is not universal. In some families, someone is only questioned for information or action.
This scholastic meaning is not explained by the teacher or the supervisor. Without understanding it, students will not focus their attention in the way that is expected and will not participate optimally. Yet, school is increasingly built around periods where school alternates with extracurricular time.
Julien Netter speaks of a "mosaic" school where activities centered on writing and individual work alternate with group activities, more informal and oral. Some students see the connections and common goals in this variety of learning situations. They also make the connection between the more informal activities and the academic disciplines. Others are more confused by these juxtaposed learning moments.
Now imagine the teacher or facilitator saying, "Listen!" Some will hear this as just an invitation to be silent, to pay attention. Others will understand that they need to retain the relevant information and that they will probably be questioned afterwards. The intention and the quality of attention will not be the same.
Country comparisons show that this phenomenon of "reproduction" does not have the same intensity in all countries. Julien NETTER coined the concept of "cultural bilingualism". Some young students sometimes have difficulty spotting the link between a group activity, on computer tools, based on oral and a more classic academic activity.
Others, on the contrary, are able to translate a free activity, unscholastic in its facilitation into academic terms, and relate it to a discipline. They are "bilingual". Fostering this "bilingualism" is a relevant avenue that emerges from this author's work.
For children to be able to bring these different approaches into dialogue, they need to be helped. This is what I advocate with the idea of bilingualism in school. We must help children to move from one logic, from one "language" to another. I show that for children who master both languages, they enrich each other. They come out stronger. But others are lost. The effectiveness is significantly less.
Julien Netter - remarks collected by François Jarraud - Café pédagogique October 2018
Helping to understand the coherence between different moments of learning is all the more important as less "academic" activities can foster the experience of another type of relationship, of recognition, of active participation, of a certain assertiveness within a group. They must not be experienced as a parenthesis without coherence within a pedagogical progression.
Illustrations : Frédéric Duriez
References
Julien NETTER - Contemporary school requisitions. A Museum Visit in Elementary School
https://aref2016.sciencesconf.org/82754
Georges FELOUZIS, " The French School Model versus Social Justice." SociologieS, Great Abstracts, Merit versus Justice, posted online January 27, 2012, accessed March 09, 2019.
http:/journals.openedition.org/sociologies/3778
Louise TOURRET France Inter : Culture and school inequalities
https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/etre-et-savoir/culture-et-inegalites-scolaires
Julien NETTER Culture and school inequalities
http://www.cafepedagogique.net/lexpresso/Pages/2018/10/05102018Article636743202690675960.aspx
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