ABSTRACT
This study was prompted by a desire to challenge the duality still dominant in a certain methodological tradition by attempting a methodical understanding, using completely objective techniques, of the most unconscious and therefore least apparent values which agents have recourse to in their practice, and of those apparently completely subjective criteria which serve to define, within a fixed academic area, the model of the accomplished man, or, in other words, of excellence as an inimitable and indefinable way of conforming to models. There is probably nothing which would enable us to perceive the values which guide the choice of academic juries, often without their being aware of it, or dominate all academic practices, as clearly as the system of statistical relationships characteristic of a group of candidates who have been successful in competitive examinations and are the products of a system of selection and presentation with which the whole of the educational system identifies. Indeed, like any social insight, the judgements that teachers make with regard to students, particularly in examination situations, take into account not only knowledge and know-how, but also the intangible nuances of manners and style, which are the imperceptible and yet never unperceived manifestations of the individual's relationship to such knowledge and know-how and the ‘half-uttered or unuttered or unutterable’ expression of a system of values which are always deciphered in terms of another system of values which themselves are just as unuttered and as unutterable. 1 Editorial note
Le concours général A national competitive examination taken by the very ablest pupils in the senior forms of French secondary schools.
L ’agrégation A competitive examination qualifying successful candidates to teach in higher education.
Les grandes écoles These are the most highly respected institutions of higher education in France. Successful completion of the course at one of these gives access to the upper echelons of the professions and civil service.
Le prix d’excellence The prize awarded in a school for all-round academic merit.
Le Brevet d’Études du Premier Cycle A certificate awarded at the end of compulsory secondary education.
