The Dualisation of Teacher Labour Markets, Employment Trajectories and the State in France

In a context of growing dualisation of the workforce that in France takes the form of a ‘contractual dualism’, this article analyses the mechanisms supporting the resort to contract observed in the public teaching sector otherwise modelled on (statutory, long-term) civil service. It departs from analyses mainly focused on the institutional variations of dualism and their outputs, and contributes to the literature on labour market segmentations by adopting an analysis of workers’ experiences and professional trajectories. Findings reveal that contract teachers receive little support from the state to secure their careers and develop professionally, but nonetheless commit to their careers despite the differential in employment and work conditions, which they seemingly consider as acceptable comparatively with their previous work and employment conditions, and given their social origins and aspirations. Analyses thus bring forth new evidence of intersections between institutionalised forms of dualism, social reproduction and the employment trajectories of individuals

Instrumentation

International audienceThe instrumental repertoires of performance-based accountability policies, composed of tools such as projects, plans, contracts, indicators, and accountability reports, are similar in the two case studies. In this chapter, we focus on the (non)usages of key tools such as indicators and contracts at the school level. In theoretical terms, we investigate the processes of instrumentation of the policy, that is to say, the problems created by the choice and uses of tools to materialize the policy. More specifically, we observe the manner in which these tools are embedded in variable micro-regulatory apparatuses, considered as the combined result of an institutional and a pragmatic construction. The analysis of the (non)usages of tools shows, on the one hand, that the articulations between tools expected by supervisory authorities are extremely variable, depending on national and local contexts, and, on the other hand, that their expected effects in terms of change, improvement, and “self-regulation” of teachers’ pedagogical practices also differ dramatically between the French and the Quebec situations. On the French side, we refer to a contingent administrative bricolage in lycées, a concern of principals and little (or not at all) affecting teachers’ practices. The appropriation of the instrumental repertoire is more consistent in Quebec schools, allowing for the simultaneous emergence of a process of semantic institutionalization of a managerial rationality and the enactment—with variations among schools—of tools to manage and monitor teachers’ pedagogical practices. We conclude on the organizational and institutional effects of these ongoing instrumental reconfigurations

Trajectories

International audienc

France: The Increasing Recognition of Migration and Ethnicity as a Source of Educational Inequalities

2nd editio