Comment peut-on être formateurs d’adultes ?

Abstract

A real system of continuous professional training, born in France thirty years ago, developed so much that certain observers regard it as a real economic sector. Inside, a social group, the trainers of adults, sees its manpower growing, but remains badly known. The principal question of this article is to know if there is a social and professional identity of this group. The theoretical framework is inspired explicitly by the interdisciplinary approach of the identity forms according to Dubar, which aims at exceeding the traditional opposition between individual identity and collective identity. Methodology associates quantitative methods and qualitative interpretations. The analysis is based on the principle of the duality of the identity, at the same time identity for others and identity for oneself. 1/ The analysis deals with the training organisations of which the trainers participate (identity suggested) ; then with the roles interiorized by the trainers in these contexts (interiorised identity) ; the compromise between these two dimensions reveals the identity for others (recognition (or not) of a professionality). 2/ The identity for oneself is explored starting from typologies based on the biographical trajectory, the perception of the current professional role and the way of considering the future. The combination between these two levels reveals a plurality of professional identities among trainers and raises the question of an anthropological approach of those identities.