Faire profession de la démocratisation culturelle: Travail, emploi et identité professionnelle des médiateurs de musées

In France as in United States or Canada, women entered museums in the beginning of the twentieth century as museum educator, a profession precisely shaped for women by the curators – all male a the time – to prevent the feminisation of their own profession. In France, museum education has since then always been a part-time job for women, working only when museums need them and earning low wage. The family portrait of museum educators has changed along the century, reflecting the transformation of women’s status and rights. The graduates in history of art’s are no longer young “bourgeoises” learning arts and philosophy to stand out in their bride’s social life; modern women wish to have children, but they also want an incentive and fulfilling profession. Another thing has changed: these flexible employment conditions also attract a few men, mainly artists because being museum educators allow them to spare time to create. Whatever their sex, museum educator’s couples are typically “feminine” ones – but if the family income and stability relies on their spouses, today’s breadwinner may be a woman.The profession has nevertheless kept much of its original features, as if this work has always been shaped to fit the social requirements on women’s family life, even scholarly ones. Museum education has indeed never been considered as a real job or a skilled occupation. That’s why this case is so peculiar: once speaking from a labour market point of view, this intellectual profession practiced by scholarly women is a part-time job for temporary workers. Thus, museum educators enable to bring together two sociological fields: the issue of employment on the one hand, focused on flexible and part-time jobs for low skilled educated women; the issue of sex discrimination focused on higher professions and education.The results are part of a survey which combines institutional archives with qualitative and quantitative empirical data. The quantitative side of the survey is a questionnaire addressed by the French ministry of Culture to 1400 public museums, inquiring people and means dedicated to education. The author was in charge of the data analysis for the museum educator’s part in 2004. Besides, biographical interviews with 70 museum educators in 20 museums across France were made by the author between 2002 and 2004. These interviews focused on the path through the current job, and the work itself: employment, salary and career.Consacrée au groupe professionnel des médiateurs dans les musées relevant de la fonction publique territoriale et de la fonction publique d’Etat, cette recherche montre que la question des statuts d’emploi et de la division du travail dans les musées est un élément prépondérant dans la construction d’une identité professionnelle. Si elle s’inscrit dans un contexte défini par les politiques culturelles, la problématique relève de la sociologie des groupes professionnels, et le cadre d’analyse de la sociologie du travail et de l’emploi, avec une attention particulière aux questions de formation, de travail et de trajectoires professionnelles. La démonstration s’appuie sur une centaine d’entretiens accompagnés d’observations, réalisés dans une vingtaine de musées français. Ces matériaux qualitatifs sont confrontés à l’analyse statistique de données issues d’une enquête administrative de la Direction des musées de France du ministère de la Culture et de la communication. La base de données principale recense les 1 948 personnes affectées à l’accompagnement dans 709 musées labellisés par le ministère de la Culture et de la Communication (exploitation sous SPSS). S'y ajoute le dépouillement des archives administratives des musées de France et du ministère de la Culture pour la période 1865-1994