Plein jeu. Les mouvements de jeunesse catholiques entre dynamique de reconquête et fabrication d’une culture ludique (1920 – 1970)

Abstract

In the 1920s, Catholic scouting makes play an essential part of its pedagogy to the point that Célestin Freinet recommended to model teaching on scouting games (even though he made a clear-cut distinction between their objectives and their methods). Youth movements and patronages also integrated play and games in their activities. Recreational activity must be educational. This appropriation resulted in the building-up of various practices, a pedagogy of imagination and the outdoorsBeing the polysemous word, play is,, is at once considered as a recreational time and a means to socialise and to internalise moral rules. How have Catholic youth organisations in their diversity contributed to the creation of game culture? The new focus on the transformations that affected youth in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as the shift towards social action of the movements had an impact on game and its concepts. Between the 1920s and the 1960s Catholic youth organisations also took part in adapting their education to the French social and cultural evolutions.

Keywords

• catholicism
• youth movements
• playful culture
• active pedagogy