La dimension stratégique de l'enseignement juridique : l'ethnographie d'un debriefing

Dans cet article sera développée une discussion à propos de la dimension stratégique de l'enseignement juridique à partir d'un cas concret : la préparation au premier concours d'accès de l'École nationale de la magistrature française. Il s'agit d'une ethnographie menée au sein de l'Institut d'Études Judiciaires de l'Université de Montpellier 1 en 2008, dans le cadre plus large de l'élaboration d'une thèse de doctorat en Science Politique, sur le recrutement des magistrats français. Le cas choisi comme source empirique de cette discussion constitue en fait un moment très particulier de l'ensemble de la préparation au concours, voire l'ensemble de l'enseignement juridique : les « oraux blancs », des exercices de simulation de l'épreuve orale de culture générale, un examen très répandu dans les concours de la fonction publique française.This article is the result of a two-day observation carried in 2007 in Montpellier Law School. The situations observed were not actually the classic teacher-student context. It was a role-play, an oral exam simulation, where the students were playing the candidate role and the lecturers were playing the jury role. The activity tried hard to reproduce the real conditions of a very particular oral exam: the general culture oral exam, one important part of the general examination to access the judicial career in France. I observed the passage of ten candidates, and I focused my interest on the moment just after the simulation: the debriefing. The framework of my paper is essentially Goffman's strategic interaction and Mehan's ethno-methodology of education. The first author will bring the notion of expression engineering and expression control. The second author will bring the idea of intelligence assessment by the interactive competence in teacher-student relations. The conclusion will show how the law schools can produce also the teaching of skills completely distinct from the law (as a learning program) itself, and even the lawyer’s method and ideology (how to think as a lawyer). The students observed have learned about: (1) formal correctness (expressions and gestures), (2) the delicate limits of self-distinction and ceremonial expression (keep neutrality without being neutral), (3) the importance given to avowals, and (4) the correct use of the «I don't know» answer