L’éducation à l’égalité des sexes et des sexualités au risque de l’altérisation de certaines familles

Abstract

This article examines how teachers (whether male or female) deal with the question of equality of the sexes and sexualities in class and the interaction between the classroom and what happens in families at home. The replies of the teachers questioned show that, far from constituting a closed world, school is traversed by personal issues or issues related to the private life of pupils and their families. While promotion of equality of the sexes and sexualities may accentuate this phenomenon, it is not the origin. On the other hand, it does clearly pose the question of norms: those which it is intended to promote, those which the children want to hear and those with which society, and their families in particular, are confronted. Work of this sort helps to make these norms explicit by questioning assumptions. It is also frequently the source of a cleavage between the families who are assumed to agree with the values promoted by the school and others who do not, either on the grounds (whether real or imagined) of their origin, their beliefs or their social class. This article focuses on these processes and the way in which they are expressed in the discourse of the people interviewed.

Keywords

• gender
• equality of the sexes and sexualities
• eaching practices
• primary school
• public versus private
• intersectionality