In the spirit of the lecture " Questions d'éducation " given this year at the Collège de France, the Chair's colloquium will address, from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, the mechanisms of learning, trajectories and school careers. The psychology of the learner will introduce us to the driving forces behind cognitive performance. The educational sciences will examine the determinants of student orientation throughout their school career, and the workings of selection and self-selection. The controversial issue of grade repetition will provide a " case study " to bring into sociological tension the competing approaches of statistical management of evidence of effectiveness and the field practice of actors. National and international assessments of pupils' school performance generally focus on reading, writing and mathematical skills. They do not identify teaching practices and methods and their effects. During the symposium, these practices and their varying effectiveness will be studied through the results of a sociological survey on learning to read. Mathematics, for its part, will be approached from twoangles : that of academic performance, whose current weaknesses contrast sharply with the excellence of French mathematical research, which ranks second in the world ; and that of the extra- or extra-curricular commitment of students who take part in mathematics competitions, including the most famous of them all, the International Mathematical Olympiad. We'll see how learning can become a stimulating sum of effort, challenge, play and cumulative commitment.
Symposium