La représentation sociale que les adolescents se font des aînés peut-elle influencer le développement de la pensée critique dialogique ? Étude d’une « scène » racontée par des adolescents marocains

Abstract

This paper is based on the findings of a recent study which revealed that, among Moroccan teenagers aged 10 to 18 years old, manifestations of Dialogical Critical Thinking predominantly take on an “epistemological perspective” labelled “relativism” by a Grounded-Theory-based developmental model formulated over the past fifteen years. In order to understand these results, which contrast with those of teenagers of the same age from Quebec and France, firstly we describe the developmental model used. Then we illustrate the ways Moroccan teenagers manifest the “relativist epistemological perspective” in their speech. Based on verbatim excerpts, the current study demonstrates how Moroccan teenagers display a tendency to distance themselves away from their personal experiences, to focus on others’ points of view and to co-construct convergences with their peers. Using an approach that understands social representation as a “scene” as well as the literature related to old persons in African societies, this paper attempts to explain the results of this study by analyzing a social representation frequently mentioned in the discourse of interviewed Moroccan youths and which revolves around the age hierarchy and the duty to listen to the elderly. The analysis of this “scene” highlights the social attitudes instilled in teenagers living in the Moroccan cultural context and which are likely to foster the development of a relativist epistemological perspective with regard to dialogical critical thinking.

Keywords

• learning and cognition
• childhood and youth
• Morocco
• pedagogy: methods and tools
• social relations and social bonding
• social representations (school/education/science/knowledge/etc.)