La construction sociale de la “déscolarisation” : examen d’un dispositif départemental de signalement de l’absentéisme

This article questions the “deschooling” from the study of a particular plan of action which mentions absenteeism situations in a French district. By introducing a collaboration between school and judiciary authorities and by gathering a large panel of field actors: school social workers, headmasters, school counselor, judges, policemen, other social workers etc., this plan of action seems to reveal a social construction in process. From quantitative and qualitative datas that this plan of action gathers, it proposes a certain point of view of “deschooling” which reflects the work of categorisation which has been done by people concerned and at the same time, influences their representations and practices.The content analysis of school social workers reports and of social investigations allows us to establish explanation models which are progressively built up, internalized and shared by different categories of professionals working in that field. The strenght of interpretations in terms of psychological weakness and breaking up of family structure contributes to minimise social dimensions and to underestimate the role of school itself in the process of “deschooling”