À propos de l’absentéisme scolaire et de la “déscolarisation” : de l’injonction “partenariale” aux résistances professionnelles

Abstract

When observing in an EPAsecondary school, the interactions of the different actors involved in the French remedial system: the Educational Commitee for Health and Civility, we see how the order to partnership set by both decentralization and the French town policy is not so obvious. The different partners invited to find a solution for “deschooling”, whichis set out as a new issue and irregular school-attendance have their own definitions of amissing student, argue on the causes and offer their own answers. In this commitee all actors work together but they team up and conflicts appear about the ways to carry out their work and about their professional identities. Thus, concerning school absenteeism, metonymy for “deschooling” a sort of negotiated social order is created. The issue being how to (or not to) get rid of those students, called risk-children. Some professionals try to catch them as customers when other actors choose to keep them in the national system of education. Competition shows up in the relations between those who want to appear as experts.

Keywords

• Absenteism
• Social world
• Concurrency
• Conflict