LEADING ARTICLE
Popular education : a topical matter at issue
• Jean-Claude Richez
DEBATES
Popular education again in vogue ?
• Denis Adam, Nathalie Boucher-Petrovic
Our matter which intends to question the topicality and the sociohistorical stakes of popular education is based, on the one hand, on the long attendance of grassroots activists, professional and trade-unionist as well, and on the other hand on an academic research in progress concerning the relations between popular education and the new information and communication technologies. Our initial report focusing on the topicality of popular education shows that this concept is asserted again. It is certainly difficult to analyse the exact causes of this interest but after several years of silence and even of ashamed reprobation ( an old-fashioned reasoning reminiscent of a bygone period). Now it is fashionable to assert this lifelong citizenship learning which formed a number of our current elites.
Testimony : The Fourth World Popular University
• Geneviève Defraigne-Tardieu
The Fourth World Popular University falls within the scope of informal education but it has been created and built priorily for and with the people living in extreme poverty. Means are implemented to enable people excluded from the pathways of knowledge to regain confidence in their thoughts, to acquire means of expression and in the long term to change their lives. The Fourth World Popular University is a great tool of emancipation for its members. The living conditions of the poorest give a measure of the state of our democracy, therefore the Fourth World University can be considered as a way to strenghten it.
The conflictual alliance of academic and popular education
• Conversation with Philippe Corcuff, by Stéphane Le Lay
The Popular University of Lyon created in 2005 relies on volontary teachers who propose three evenings per week, for free and for all the courses, « critical knowledge » and debates in the tradition of the Enlightment.But it encounters a cultural cost of entry (this way, almost half the listeners are students, teachers or social workers). Nevertheless, an informal network of popular universities is developing (in Caen, Arras…) via Internet, aiming at an educative and left-wing policy.
The unrecognized children of popular education
• Conversation with Hugues Bazin
This paper aims to state the terms of a debate which never took place between a new generation of informal actors deeply committed in their sociocultural environment and the popular education historically instituted through gatherings, organisations and structures. For this generation, the aim is not merely to participate to discussions, it also means to influence effectively the future of a movement in a changing society. Without claiming to summarize the complexity of the situation, some elements of understanding are developed in this paper to carry on the debate.
Popular education : how many quotations ?
• Frédéric Chateigner
Often announced these past years, is the « revival » of popular education a reality in the public sphere, beyond the militant circles ? This research note begins the quantitative analysis of all the papers containing the expression « popular education » in five national daily newspapers since ten-twenty years. It shows that the revival in question, though modest and variable in reference to the headlines taken into account is undeniable. In particular, the use of the expression has become appreciably less formal and routine than it was ten years ago
Did you say popular education ? a chronological path
• Françoise Tétard
The term « popular education » is like « a bag » and through texts, its multiple uses can be explained in the course of time. Different stages and various stakes are set out : the popular universities and their ideal of « egaliterian volunteers » at the end of the 19th century, the Teaching League and the popular instruction given by its teachers, the (subversive) Dreyfus affair, the rise of preoccupations concerning young people during the interwar period, the plans of the National Council of the Resistance and finally the implementation of Youth and Sports policies at the Liberation.
POINTS OF VIEW
When the high school student combines times : social rythms of the student-workers
• Herilalaina Rakoto-Raharimanana
A phenomenon is spreading stealthily amidst the high school student population : the odd jobs. Beyond the economic aspects, this phenomenon stimulates a temporal and organisational change which places the student-worker in discrepancy with the traditional high school student model. Indeed, behind the apparent homogeneity of the high school student population, a whole set of strong changes is emerging and the impact stirs the students rythms and rules their social times. In this paper, we develop an analysis of the social construction of the students’ social rythms through a concrete study as regards student-workers
Are holiday camps still as nice ?
• Joël Zaffran
Since ten years, the collective stays have undergone a decline in frequentation. How to tackle the issue of youth desaffection for collective holidays ? The aim of this synthesis is to draw tracks of investigation based on a model of interpretation regarding the structural and economic reasons of this loss of interest. Consequently, the construction of a leisure typology that young pepole can practice when they have the opportunity will allow to tackle spare time from two logics inherent to youth such as emancipation and hedonism. Finally, the prospective character of this paper opens a field of research about spare time.
