Young people’s disillusionment with French education before 1968: sport, the school curriculum and social change

Abstract

The quasi-revolutionary events of May 1968 have come to symbolize the generation gap between young people and their elders in France, and of contestation over social values, freedom and control. This article demonstrates that this discontent was apparent earlier in the decade, although politicians in charge of youth affairs either did not see it or chose not to publicize its existence. It focuses on debates relating to sport – and its incorporation into the teaching of physical education in lycées – because of its importance both within formal schooling and as an extra-curricular leisure activity. In 1966 François Missoffe, Minister of Youth Affairs and Sport, launched a huge inquiry into the problems facing young people, leading to the publication of an official report in 1967 which, perhaps surprisingly, had nothing to say about unrest among young people. This article aims to access the voices of young people in French lycées by mining the contents of over 2600 files of evidence that were collected during the course of the Missoffe inquiry. We argue that it is important to measure the gap between what the political and educational decision-makers presupposed about the sporting needs of young people and the views these same young people actually expressed. The article highlights examples of young people’s disillusionment with the teaching of sport and physical education, demonstrating that this not only conveyed signs of discontent with educational institutions as a whole but also a wider desire for social change that anticipated the views of angry lycéens (school pupils) in May 1968.