(en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL dossier spécial sur
l'éducation populaire - Popular Education: 200 Years of voluntarism
and domestication attempts (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
Popular education has plural origins. Since 1789, several trends have made education and
awareness of the people imperative. Some to strengthen the republic against the
obscurantism; some to soften the violence of capitalism; still others to awaken revolt.
----------- This is the eighteenth century, at the time the Enlightenment, which made up
the idea of "popular education". In a context of struggle against obscurantism and the
influence of the Catholic Church in France, spreads the idea of a necessary education of
all and, in this case, the people, by the people, the people. These are the beginnings of
the idea of direct action education. ---- In 1792, undergoing a revolution, Condorcet
deliver to the Legislative Assembly Education Report which reads: "As long as there are
men who will not obey their only reason to receive their opinions a foreign opinion, in
vain all strings were broken in vain orders opinions would be useful truths. The human
race would still be less divided between two classes: the men who reason, and men who
believe. That of masters and slaves. "
If the French Revolution did not lead to an emancipation of the exploited, limiting itself
to replace the power of the aristocracy of the capitalist bourgeoisie, it nevertheless
allowed the mixing of many emancipatory ideas, including those defended Condorcet.
They will make their way.
In the nineteenth century France marked by the revolutions of 1830, 1848 and 1871 are born
three currents that practice, each in their own way, a popular form of education:
a republican secular power;
Christian social current;
a worker and revolutionary current.
Against obscurantism: the republican secular power
Following Condorcet, Republican secular power considers it necessary to reduce
obscurantism maintained by the Church to firmly establish a republic. Then create the
great secular associations that aim to develop the multidisciplinary education of adults
to create the conditions for social progress.
Thus, after 1830, was founded the Polytechnic Association, one of whose leaders is Auguste
Comte, the philosopher of "positivism", this almost mystical vision of a humanity rising
inexorably through science. In 1848, the successor Philotechnique Association, which still
exists.
In 1866, finally, the League of Education was founded by Jean Mace, republican journalist
and author of popular science books.
In 1868, while the Second Empire softened a law authorizing public meetings, since they do
not deal with politics or religion. Obviously, this prohibition was quickly bypassed, and
we see a proliferation of spaces for the people to learn and able to address social
issues. These public meetings of the Empire ending are real popular education places,
decisive in the political formation of those who will become the Communards.
In 1871, the Paris Commune decreed some reforms, including the secular and free education
and vocational training provided by the workers themselves.
Ten years later, the Jules Ferry disaster will create the republican school to remove
children from the influence of religious course, but also to stem the revolutionary ideas.
Against poverty: Social Christian current
Christianity is a social movement that brings together interclassist son of notable and
young workers and peasants, which is structured around the struggle ¬contre misery and
poverty. He sometimes including its Protestant side, joined the secular power on the
vision of education.
On the Catholic side, it is shown in particular by the magazine The Furrow, founded in
1894 by Marc Sangnier. In the 1900s, Furrow is the organ of a broad movement that takes an
unorthodox twist vis-à-vis the doctrine of the Church, until at being condemned by Pope
Pius X for " modernism ". Disciplined, he autodissout in 1910.
However, it will indirectly posterity. The Young Christian Workers (YCW), founded in 1925,
plays an important role in social awareness of youth, especially in rural areas. She knows
her its golden age in the 1960s, before entering decline. It still exists, on rather
progressive bases.
Against capital: the workers and revolutionary current
The French labor movement has its origins in the friendly, mutual and cooperative created
from the years 1810-1820, to circumvent the ban on unions by law Hatter in 1791.
After the suppression of the Commune broke his back, the labor movement really takes off
in the 1880s and became a "power" that counts.
The revolutionary distrust of the bourgeois school built by Jules Ferry with the laws of
1881-1882, and seek to preserve a culture and values to the working class. In the 1890s,
labor exchanges, created by municipalities to regulate the labor market, are subverted by
revolutionary unionists seeking to turn them into a bases-against proletarian society,
providing them with ¬services support, libraries, night school where we study economics,
philosophy, history. Education is then conceived as a prelude to the revolution: "What is
missing in the workman, it is the science of his misfortune", writes the anarchist Fernand
Pelloutier elected secretary ¬travail Scholarship Federation 1895.
The institutionalization and state supervision
In the years 1920-1930, the "popular education" is gradually becoming a full-fledged
business sector.
From 1940 to 1944, the Vichy regime wants to mold the youth in the ideology of the
National Revolution whose motto is "work, family, fatherland." Three devices will be
created for this: youth work sites, schools executives or heads of schools and youth centers.
The order of October 2, 1943 creates the approval "Youth and popular education."
Associations who get it are placed de facto under the supervision of the State, and can
get grants. This is the beginning of an institutionalization which will be renewed after
the Liberation.
Under Vichy, popular education associations have also been based in hiding - Francas and
the Peuple et Culture in 1943 - and, at the Liberation, these young people are resilient
advocate for the development of a mass political education conceived as a pedagogy of
democracy, so as to prevent totalitarian temptations.
This ambition, however, fizzled. Indeed, if the Education Directorate of Adult and popular
education is implemented within the provisional government of 1944, it is diluted in 1948
in a General Directorate of Youth and Sports, ambition much more restricted policy.
The drift towards the socio-cultural activities
In 1959, then what created the Ministry of Culture under the leadership of the Gaullist
novelist Andre Malraux, popular education remains within the Youth and Sports: The new
ministry is not the task of emancipation of the people but artistic creation and access to
"major works of humanity". For example, the practice of amateur theater under the Ministry
of Youth, while the theater "creation" through the Ministry of Culture.
The idea of teaching democracy is abandoned by the institutions. It turns into
socio-cultural activities, related to leisure.
It was in this period that the popular education sector into a vicious circle.
First, its activists and its activists are getting recognition of the state, resulting in
the creation of rights and resources allocation.
But this causes the institutionalization and de-politicization of actions. The militant
mood disappears, professionalism is gaining ground; one must be a graduate to be leader or
facilitator; the leadership and structures of leaders away from the socially most
concerned that they now see as "their audience."
Proponents of an activist trying to resist current. The subversive and self-management
momentum of May 68 helps them. On May 25, 1968, the principals of MJC publish the
"Villeurbanne Declaration", which states: "any cultural effort that we will no longer
appear vain as long as it does not explicitly propose to be a company of politicization:
that is, inventing tirelessly for this non-public opportunities to politicize, to choose
freely, beyond the feeling of powerlessness and absurdity that continues to generate in
him a social system where men are never able to invent their own all humanity ".
A small flashback
After the reflux of the struggles in the 1980s, the 1990s, the era of open technicisation.
Until then, one or facilitator was everything, the goal is to create the class and
politics. Now they and they are specialized in one activity. This means that the average -
sports, artistic practice, etc. - Becomes an end in itself. The policy is still a little
forgotten.
In November 1998, the Ministry of Youth and Sports organizes "Love for the future of
public education" with the actresses and actors in the sector. Working groups are created.
If all this has no effect on government policies, a handful of activists and militants
find common convictions.
These meetings will be born several innovative projects, including the scop in 2007. Le
Pavé Le Pavé and other genuinely popular education delivered to date. The term has the
same tendency to become a keyword, to slip imperative in its grant application package.
Resurrected immediately sanitized? What is certain is that a word is not enough to change
the associative practices prisoners of their business model and Short termist functioning
and depoliticised funding through calls for proposals.
And today?
If public education is, and if it has never ceased to exist, it is in its many forms, not
in its confiscation by associations claiming a ministerial label "Youth and Popular
Education".
It exists wherever it leads an action for awareness, emancipation, development of the
power of acting and social transformation in the unions, in educational structures that
implement alternative pedagogies in companies that operate self-management in social work
when it is not designed as social control, etc. And that's what this folder out to
demonstrate.
Adeline (AL northeast Paris)
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Histoire-200-ans-de-volontarisme
