Le travail scolaire au lycée : du discours de l'institution à l'expérience des élèves

Academic work in secondary schools : From the establishment's discourse to students' experience How do today's high school students experience the academic work they are asked to do ? In a survey conducted in two French secondary schools, the establishments and the students justify their viewpoints through a discourse about «meritocratic justice» and «success through work». But the difficulty, given the lack of stable norms, of assessing their own work leads students to reintroduce the idea of «an equal grade for equal work». This dominant idea brings along many misunderstandings, since there is a contrast between the «work discourse» and the results when grades are posted. Three reasons why this discourse carries weight are examined. It has come along with the development of mass education and its principle of equality : work serves as a weapon for motivating students in a context where pedagogical norms are unsettled given its malleability, the reference to work has many potential uses. Secondly, since work is not defined with reference to flexible criteria, students resort to the criterion of quantity-even more so when they are having difficulty. Work becomes a way to «save» students from the offenses of the academic verdict. Thirdly, by combining the quantity of work provided and the level of success, there are many possibilities for adjusting, positively or negatively, the notion of work.A partir d'une enquête dans deux lycées, l'article vise à comprendre quel type d'expérience du travail les lycéens ont aujourd'hui. L'institution comme les lycéens se légitiment par un discours de justice méritocratique, «réussir par son travail». Mais la difficulté d'une auto-évaluation, faute de normes stables, conduit les lycéens à réintroduire un équivalent travail «à travail égal, note égale». Cette représentation dominante entraîne de nombreux malentendus car entre le discours du travail et le «constat du classement» il y a décalage.Barrère Anne. Le travail scolaire au lycée : du discours de l'institution à l'expérience des élèves. In: Sociologie du travail, 39ᵉ année n°1, Janvier-mars 1997. pp. 19-38