Un bouillon de culture pour les sciences de l'éducation? Le Congrès international d'éducation morale (1908–1934)

Abstract

On aura donc à résoudre, par divers moyens, cette difficulté centrale qui consiste à parler d’une discipline qui n’existe pas encore, mais qui va exister, et pour laquelle il faut bien qu’il y ait, dans les temps de sa genèse, des éléments qui soient en train d’en préparer le surgissement. (Pierre Favre, Naissances de la science politique en France, 1870–1914 (Paris, 1989), p. 14) La recherche est soutenue par le Fonds national suisse de la recherche scientifique (1214-065300.01), dirigée par Rita Hofstetter et Bernard Schneuwly, avec la collaboration de Lucien Criblez, Valérie Lussi, Martina Späni et moi-même, soit l’Équipe de Recherche en Histoire des Sciences de l'éducation de l’Université de Genève (ERHISE). Je tiens à remercier les commentaires critiques que les membres de l’équipe ont apportés aux diverses versions du présent article. This article deals with the International moral education congress during its life period, 1908–1934. More specifically it examines the possible relationship between this Congress and the development of the educational science(s) as a disciplinary field. The study is mostly based on the proceedings and publications of the International moral education congresses. Inspired by historians/sociologists of sciences stressing the importance of the international dimension of scientific recognition, the analysis investigates the possible emergence of the educational science(s) in the context of the Congress. Four parts constitute this paper. A short introduction stresses first the problematic link between a congress devoted to educational matters, without exclusive scientific ambitions, and the emergence of a discipline of education, during the first decade of the twentieth century. The article then focuses on the aims and ideals of the instigators of the international moral. It points out the ambivalence between the internationality of the Congress, and the internationalism expressed by the activists of the movement, very close to the agenda of the international reconciliation, before and after the First World War. The second part goes into the proceedings of the six international congresses of the movement and gives a view of the socio-professional profiles of the congress participants. It deals with the dynamic tensions between on the one hand the scientific or academic dimensions of the movement (participants, status of the debates) and on the other the field of practice or administration in the education field. The third part concerns the content of the discussions held in the Congress, the general evolution of working themes and in particular the place occupied by university researchers or professors in education. Piaget declared as evidence in 1965 that the International moral education congress had been a vector of pedagogy as a scientific discipline. This article proposes to consider this Congress as a plausible but little productive culture medium of this emerging disciplinary field of education.