Publish at March 24 2019 Updated February 19 2026
To arrive in front of a class and feel powerless in the face of students with a bleak future all mapped out for them, is a frustration that many teachers can feel. But is the future really that mapped out? Since time immemorial, in ancient Greece among others, the question of determinism and free will has been debated. But is choice really that binary?
Determinism is linked to the idea of causality, which is the relationship between cause and effect. Under certain conditions, an event will cause an outcome. Determinists believe that much of what happens to us is beyond our control. In other words, a specific set of circumstances shapes each of our actions, which in turn determines what happens to us.
The PISA report published in October 2018 is unequivocal: France does not give equal opportunities to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Only 17% of adults with parents who don't have a high school diploma have obtained a higher education diploma, while this is the case for 73% of adults with parents who have a higher education diploma, adds the OECD.
Adults whose parents have a higher education qualification are 14 times more likely to also have a higher education qualification than those whose parents have a lower level of education!
In other words, children's level of education is statistically closely linked to that of their family environment. This highlights the cultural and social factors behind inequalities at school. Adolescents' school careers are strongly linked to their parents' level of education.
Sociologists such as Pierre Bourdieu speak of the transmission of cultural capital. The diploma is the institutionalized state of cultural capital, i.e. the objectification of cultural capital in the form of titles.
Children's acquisition and mastery of school standards is facilitated by the proximity of their background to the school system. This educational heritage alone does not fully explain the differences in children's educational success.
Parents' ambitions are often much stronger in more privileged backgrounds, and are reflected in greater perseverance in this area. The link between inequality at school and background is thus explained as much by the transmission of a school culture as by a propensity, which varies according to social position, to "invest" in children's studies[1].
Free will is that, as conscious human beings, we are free to make genuinely indeterminate choices in circumstances where we are genuinely capable of doing so, and where we choose to do so freely or without coercion.
Turning the opposition between determinism and free will into a binary choice with a universal truth makes little sense. Examples and studies can give contradictory results, depending on the point of view. The question makes more sense if asked at the level of the individual rather than society as a whole.
Character traits specific to each individual, but also developed with the influence of the family environment, have a major effect on the learner's perception of himself and his ability to take charge of his future.
Teachers have already been able to change learners' destinies by helping them cross the boundary between determinism and free will. Let's look at three models for possible solutions:
1-. The "locus of control" or attibutionality theory
The locus of control determines where the individual situates the cause of his or her performance and the sequence of events in his or her life. The locus of control has a major impact on life choices, motivation and well-being. [2]
Learners' perceptions are essential. What's the difference between thinking you failed a test because you were unlucky, because you didn't study or because you'll never understand it? [3] In the latter case, the learner can never be motivated to succeed, since he or she doesn't see success as a possibility.
Luck in this case is to be seen as chance, because many people think that luck, in the sense of fortune, is controllable.
R.Viau's dynamic model of motivation in the school context can help us to develop possible solutions. [4] In his model, determinants are the components of motivation directly influenced by context, and these three types of perception:
ThePygmalion effect is an improvement in a person's performance when he or she is expected to perform better or be more successful.
As two researchers, Rosenthal and Jacobsen, have shown. Teachers' expectations of their learners are of paramount importance. Their experiment took place in an elementary school where pupils were given preliminary intelligence tests. Rosenthal and Jacobsen then informed the teachers of the names of twenty percent of the school's students who showed unusual potential and who would flourish academically during the year.
Unbeknownst to the teachers, these students were selected at random, unrelated to the initial test. When Rosenthal and Jacobson tested the students eight months later, they discovered that the randomly selected students whose teachers thought they would do better scored higher on the tests than their peers.
Rosenthal insists that the Pygmalion effect also applies to higher education.
References
Equity in Education - Breaking Down Barriers to Social Mobility - PISA
http://www.oecd.org/education/equity-in-education-9789264073234-en.htm
The Three States of Cultural Capital [article] - Pierre Bourdieu
https://www.persee.fr/doc/arss_0335-5322_1979_num_30_1_2654
[1] Marc-Antoine Estrade, "Les inégalités devant l'école", INSEE N°400, September 1995
[2] School - Hé Charlemagne - The locus of control
https://www.hecharlemagne.be/le-locus-of-control/
[3] M. Houx, "Approche de L'adolescent, vie scolaire et gestion des groupes", Presse Universitaire de Mons 2002-2003
How do you get lucky? - Acting and undertaking
https://www.agiretentreprendre.fr/avoir-chance/
Justine Sinoir. School motivation. Education. 2017
Pygmalion effect - https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/pygmalion-effect
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