Educating the people: Cours d’adultes and social stratification in France, 1830–1870

Abstract

This essay examines the formation, operation, and social effects of adult education classes in France during the nineteenth century. These classes were created and operated prior to the formation of France’s national education system and were part of the expansion of primary schooling for the working class, or more generally for “the people”. The more formally organised classes were typically held at local Catholic and non‐sectarian primary schools throughout France, but this essay argues that classes held in a variety of other settings contributed to the diversity of adult education courses offered in the 1830s and 1840s. During this early period, the diversity of adult education courses led to wide‐ranging social effects, including a challenge to the existing political and social order. Ultimately, however, adult education courses were incorporated into the developing national primary education system and became part of the formation of a generalised system of social distinction that defined and reproduced hierarchies of class and gender in modern French society.