The relationship between the newcomers in the Cévennes and schooling

From the seventies – the start of the “back to nature” movement – up to the present, groups of people have been settling in the Cévennes in pursuit of better living conditions, but mainly because they are looking for a way of life that is consistent with the ideas they believe in. Although their social and geographic backgrounds, the paths they have followed and their settlement conditions are heterogeneous, the vast majority of the parents surveyed indicate that one of their strongest motivations for coming to and settling in such a remote area was education for their children. Their expectations concerning education may differ, but closeness to nature, the desire to relate education to life experience, to raise children in an educational environment believed to foster creativity and freedom, and to protect them from violence (whether actual or assumed) in large urban schools are repeatedly mentioned. These people who have moved out of the urban environment view the education of their children in opposition to the prevailing competitive values commonly associated with cities, the symbol of individualization, and therefore prefer to enrol their children in small rural primary schools, which they often idealise. <br />Enrolling their children in a village school is seen as a way of fitting into the local community, mainly due to the opportunities for socialising that schools provide. Parents believe that in this way they are offering their children better schooling conditions, although their hopes are not always fulfilled. Most of the newcomers to the Cevennes feel involved in education and try to model the local schools in keeping with their ideas. From the school point of view, teachers who are willing to gain – or at least maintain – a sufficient number of pupils work to make their school attractive.<br /><br />This paper will attempt to analyse the connection between the kind of schooling expected by the people who have chosen to settle in a remote rural area and the educational offer they actually find there. It will also analyse the influence of this new population on a changing school environment