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Abstract
The paper provides a historical analysis of the evolution of PE teacher education (PETE) in France since the end of the nineteenth century. It highlights three main points: the progressive unification and integration into university structures, the implementation of scientific research within the structures of PETE and the creation of a specific corporate body of teachers. Over the years, PETE has been torn between various social groups—i.e. the military, doctors, sportsmen, teachers, researchers. From this, PETE was built over tensions that still endure. When it became the ‘STAPS pathway’ in the 1980s, it showed a new face, that of a university discipline with marked scientific ambitions that did not correspond to the origins of PE teaching. The analysis endeavours to bring precise knowledge of the evolution of PETE in France, and it underlines the scientific questions that developed there.
Notes
1. This school (école militaire de Joinville) is a military school. It was created in 1852 (Arnaud, Citation1982) to train soldiers in gymnastics. Indeed, after the civilian and military gymnasium of Grenelle was closed down in 1838, the French army no longer had a gymnastics school.
2. Report to His Excellency the Minister of Public Instruction [Rapport à son excellence M. le Ministre de l'Instruction Publique], 1869.
3. Throughout the nineteenth century, increasing numbers of civilian gymnasiums opened, offering gymnastics classes to a large public. These institutions also educated gymnastics instructors (for instance, the gymnasium of A. H. Triat, created in 1846 at rue Montaigne, Paris, or that of E. M. Paz, created in 1865).
4. See Quest, 42 (1990): this journal presents many articles dealing with the construction of PETE.
5. Duruy decree (Décret Duruy), 1869.
6. Georges Démeny (1850–1917) was a physiologist. He worked with J. E. Marey, for whom he was assistant from 1880 to 1894 at the physiological station of the Parc des Princes. With E. Corra, he founded the Circle of Rational Gymnastics (Cercle de Gymnastique Rationnelle) in 1880, a setting for thinking in physical education and PE education. He was nominated reporter for the Commission on the Reform of Gymnastics at the Ministry of Public Instruction in 1888, and in 1889 he wrote his Handbook of gymnastics and school games [Manuel de gymnastique et de jeux scolaires], published in 1891.
7. The Circle was founded on 1 January 1880. Article 1 of the statute defines its objectives: ‘to develop the theoretical and practical culture of rational gymnastics, and to spread its own principles by all possible means (classes, conferences, publications)’: see Compte-rendu de l'assemblée générale du 11 juillet 1880; Démeny, Cours 1880; Rapport 1889; Education physique 1905: Harmonie des mouvements; Recueil de texts (Archives de l'INSEP).
8. The Circle of Rational Gymnastics offered public theoretical classes paid for by the City of Paris, as well as practical classes (see Résumé des cours théoriques sur l’éducation physique, Premier fascicule, 1880–6, Archives de l'INSEP); see also: ‘Résumé des cours de physiologie, d'anatomie et de mécanique animale’, Revue du cercle de gymnastique rationnelle, 1 (1881); ‘Leçon d'ouverture des cours de gymnastique rationnelle’, Revue du cercle de gymnastique rationnelle, 3–4 (1881).
9. The elementary degree of the CAEG was for primary schools, and the superior degree for collèges and lycées (Decree dated 20 December 1907). Only those who passed the elementary CAEG and those who passed a certificate or a diploma in gymnastics from the School of Joinville could take the superior CAEG.
10. Georges Hébert (1875–1957) was a military man who taught physical exercise in the school of marines in Lorient. He created a PE method, the so-called ‘natural method’, publicly demonstrated in 1913. After the First World War, he founded gymnastics colleges (the ‘Palestres’), to provide PE for women and children. He also was the publisher of Education physique, a review created in 1902. His method spread throughout schools and many companies.
11. In 1912, with the support of the Marques De Polignac, Hébert founded the College of Athletes of Reims, whose aim was to prepare athletes for international competitions. The college also educated teachers to the natural method, but the school was soon destroyed during the First World War (Hébert, Citation1912).
12. The first one was in Bordeaux, through the impetus of Dr Philippe Tissié (1852–1935) (Tissié, Citation1931).
13. Philippe Tissié (1852–1935), doctor of medicine, 1887, founded the Physical Education League of the Region of Bordeaux (Ligue girondine d’éducation physique) in 1888, an organization that promoted the Lendits (large games events for primary school children) and created the Revue des jeux scolaires [Review of School Games] in 1890. After a trip to Sweden, he adopted the method used there and taught it from 1903 to 1913 to students at the female teacher training college in Pau. Tissié was particularly linked to the school of Joinville and to Major Coste. He took part in the compilation of the general rules of physical education in 1902, and also in the creation of the Regional Institutes of Physical Education, and was a member of the Superior Commission for Physical Education at the Public Instruction Ministry.
14. Its localization was not settled at that date, so the institution wandered from one Parisian location to another.
15. The so-called government of Vichy established itself after the French surrender to Germany during the Second World War, under Marshall Pétain. On the actions of this government on PE, see Gay-Lescot (Citation1991).
16. To compensate for the lack of teachers, the Vichy government created a diploma for PE instructors in 1942. Some regional centres, such as the General and Physical Education Regional Centres (CREGS) (Centre régionaux d’éducation générale et sportive), and a national centre, the Instructors and Athletes National Centre (CNMA) (Centre national de moniteurs et d'athlètes) in Antibes, prepared for the diploma and played other roles, including the preparation for sports competitions and organization of school teachers’ training courses. Instructors could become Masters in PE in 1946, and Assistant Teachers in PE in 1974. The recruiting process ceased in 1981, and the last class was recruited in 1984.
17. ‘Popular education’ was a form of education not taught at school. It began between the two World Wars; it is a political project introduced by the Communist Party, and more generally by the Labour movement.
18. After being attached to the Ministry of War and Health in the early twentieth century, French PE was then transferred to governmental structures for youth and sports (a secretaryship of state, and then a ministry). Only later did PE finally join the other disciplines taught at schools, under the Ministry of National Education. The measure was largely called for by the corporate body of PE teachers, who saw it as recognition of their status.
19. The Certificate of Ability to Teach Sports and Physical Education (CAPEPS) (Certificat d'Aptitude au Professorat d'EPS) replaced the Certificate of Ability to Teach Gymnastics (CAEG) (Certificat d'Aptitude à l'Enseignement de la Gymnastique) and the Certificate of Ability to Teach Physical Education (CAEP) (Certificat d'Aptitude à l'Enseignement de l'Education Physique) in 1945.
20. The fact that PETE was strongly structured gave birth to a truly specific corporate body, despite the diversification of the structures.
21. Arrêté (Order) of 29 September 1955, Article 1.
22. The agrégation is a diploma superior to the Certificate of Ability to Teach in Secondary School (CAPES) (Certificat d'aptitude à l'enseignement secondaire), obtained through a very selective competitive examination that ensures promotion to the laureates and favouring their teaching in the highest structures of secondary education (lycées, classes préparatoires, i.e. classes preparing for the entrance examination for the ENS and other prestigious schools). The doctorate degree (doctorat, PhD) is the highest university degree, obtained after presentation of a thesis, the requirements of which have changed over the years.
23. E. Hiriartborde was a psychologist, with responsibility for research at the ENSEPS for females in 1954. He was from the CNRS, the main public institution in France for research outside universities.
24. There are two unions for PE. The Union of Teachers, created in 1926, was broken up during the Second World War and re-founded in 1944. It became the National Union of Physical Education (SNEP) in 1958. The other union was that of the Masters of PE (SNEEPS), created during the Second World War. It disappeared in 1993: see Attali (Citation2003).
25. Decree 70-302, 6 April 1970, confirmed by inter-ministry decree on 26 March 1973.
26. Decree 73-359, 26 March 1973, Article 9.
27. It transformed the instructors educated in the CREPS into assistant PE teachers.
28. Diploma for General University Students (Diplôme d'Etudes Universitaires Générales), obtained after two years of college; it corresponds to today's L2.
29. Diploma obtained at the end of the third year of college.
30. In 1975 it was composed of J. Thibault (historian), A. Hébrard (psychologist) and R. Delaubert (general inspector of PE), all three were PE teachers.
31. Diploma obtained after four years of university studies, equivalent to today's first year of the Master's degree.
32. Like the other sections of the National Council of the Universities (CNU) (Conseil National des Universités), section 74 (i.e. STAPS) deals with the careers of teacher-researchers (assistant professors and professors), especially the qualification process (authorizing researchers to apply for positions offered by universities). When section 74 was created, it had J. Thibault (former PE teacher and historian) for president.
33. The first teacher-researcher was J. Thibault, who became in 1979 a university professor in contemporary history.
34. The titles correspond to different ranks of university teachers, the highest is that of university professor.
35. The former UER became the Units of Education and Research (UFR) (Unités de Formation et de Recherche) in the early 1980s.
36. Source: information note 01.39 of the MEN (DPD C2) on STAPS, dated August 2001.
37. Accreditation to Supervise Research (HDR) (Habilitation à diriger les recherches) requires the presentation of a thesis in which the maître de conférence shows how his/her personal work and research have progressed since the doctorat. Once obtained, the HDR allows the maître de conférence to apply for nomination as professeur d'université (the highest rank for French teacher-researchers) by the CNU STAPS (section 74).
38. The terms are taken from interviews the authors conducted with PE teachers and teacher-researchers from various French UFR STAPS.
39. Before 1981, all instructors (PE teachers, assistant PE teachers, sports educators) were under the supervision of the Ministry of Youth and Sports (MJS) (Minsitère de la jeunesse et des sports). However, in the 1970s, the instructors divided, as previously mentioned (see Terral, Citation2003b). The gradual autonomy of PE teachers from the MJS was accompanied by a desire to make PE more scientific, against those sports educators thought too ‘empiricist, through a denunciation of the current drift of competitive sports, and by the pursuit of an alternative sports model that would be more educative.
40. In 2000 many of the ‘professionalizing’ decided to create a third academic association, the Association for Research on Intervention in Sports (ARIS) (Association pour la Recherche sur l'Intervention dans le Sport). The ARIS gathers together teacher-researchers and a large part of PE teachers either engaged or not in a PhD programme. These various actors do ‘didactic’ research in PE and sports, or work in psychology, anthropology or social science in teaching, coaching or management.
41. The aim of these researchers is to produce knowledge that will directly help professionals such as sports administrators and managers. The project is no longer strictly academic incorporating the scientific description of ‘phenomena for ultimate purpose’. It aims at providing solutions to the problems professionals meet and at optimizing their action. Hence were created forms of social science, economy or law directly designed to provide action principles in sports administration (management of a sports club, management of a leisure sports company, etc.).