ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the forms of autonomous work that can be observed in French école maternelle by comparing two types of situations: “autonomous workshops” and individual Montessori-type activities. The mobilized data stems from two field studies carried out in 2010–2011 and in 2016–2017 in seven classes of kindergarten (called “grande section”, or third and last year of French école maternelle for children aged 5–6) located in contrasting social environments (priority education classes and “ordinary” classes). The point of view adopted is based on the sociology of pedagogy proposed by Basil Bernstein and his followers and on works about the construction of educational inequalities in kindergarten. This contribution is divided into three parts. The first part outlines the theoretical and conceptual framework underlying the results presented. The second part presents the most common situations of autonomous work observable in kindergarten called “autonomous workshops”. The third one develops the case of Montessori-type autonomous activities which are developed in certain classes. In a transversal way, the chapter highlights two main processes underlying the autonomous school activities which produce school inequalities: firstly, the loose cognitive framing of activities and the limited possibilities for elaboration that result from this, and secondly, the accentuation of the gaps in exposure to the most academic knowledge, in the case of Montessori-type activities. These processes tend to preclude possibilities of revising what is being learned for pupils who have not already mastered the material because of their previous school or family learning, and thus run the risk of accentuating inequalities within classes from the first years of schooling.
