L’insertion scolaire des élèves issus de l’immigration – enjeux et perspectives de prévention

Abstract

Theoretical backgroundThere is currently a high risk of school failure in France, especially as it pertains to migrants’ children. The transcultural clinical field has identified three vulnerability periods in their development : early interactions, when entering formal school at the age of 6 and adolescence – i.e. three key periods in the separation-individuation process. It also underlined the negative effect of transfero-counter-transferential reactions in the pedagogical interactions. MethodsWe here discuss the cases of Ali and Eva, two 16-year-olds, born in France of Maghreb origins, and considered as illiterate by the school system. We followed them during their first year of cooking training in a Parisian vocational high school. We also interviewed their parents and teachers, in order to cross perspectives and to identify the determining factors of the pedagogical encounter. ConclusionsOur analysis allowed us to show the necessity to take into account anthropological and geopolitical factors when it comes to clinical as well as pedagogical assessments, in order to prevent fake diagnosis and inefficient therapies. We thus developed an innovating mediation design between families and school professionals, which helps to compensate for children of migrants’ vulnerability factors and to promote their protection factors. This new transcultural mediation design thereby constitutes a prevention tool for migrants’ children school insertion.