L'education technologique a l'ecole moyenne en france: Problemes de didactique curriculaire

Résumé

Le propos de l'article est d'examiner certaines formes et contenus diciplinaires et non‐disciplinaires du curriculum scolaire. La technologie au collège en France sert de modèle d'étude, avec les enjeux et problèmes soulevés par sa récente reconfiguration.

Executive Summary

In what terms is it possible to discuss those forms and contents of school curricula that are peculiar to particular disciplines and those that are not? The recent reorganization of technological education in the French “collèges” (i.e., the end of North American primary school; children ages 11 to 15) offers an opportunity to examine this question. The first part of this article takes up the question of “What is technology?” by clarifying, from a political perspective, the goals of the discipline‐offering support to academic and vocational guidance, ensuring a grasp of the technological domain, enabling the acquisition of information and communication technologies, and offering education in teamwork. The second part presents the founding program choices of the discipline: the tasks assigned to students, the equipment and tools, and the languages and symbolic systems; as well as the identification of technology as a school discipline and of IT as a component of technology; and the reference of school activities to industry actors and to services. The third part takes up a few teaching‐methods problems involved in constructing the discipline: discipline unity, task progression, curriculum flexibility, and the evaluability of lived experience and acquired competencies. The final portion of this article is devoted to outlining a few reflections on the idea of curricular matrices and to pointing out the necessity for some re‐examinations of curriculum theory.