The Evolution of Education in France by Emile Durkheim: A Sociological Analysis

Extract

[...] Firstly, in this work centered specifically on the understanding of the evolution of the educational system, Emile Durkheim I have focused on the teacher as an individual and presented it as a critical point, parallel to the understanding of teachers as members of a profession and a group. In fact, he specifies that any change in the educational system must be encouraged above all by the teachers in order to respond to emerging social needs as well as to the specific needs of the entire system, namely here, French society. [...]

[...] Therefore, we must consider this book as a 'classic' that must necessarily be known in order to be able to go beyond it and criticize it. [...]

[...] From this perspective, for Durkheim, modern society relies increasingly on the industrialization of domains of life influenced by the division of labor. This is what he shows through his proposal. As a result, there is an increased differentiation of social roles and a specialization of social functions. In fact, one of the concerns related to this adaptation to the reduction of circumstances is the risk that social solidarity disintegrates through the stratification of society through emerging caste systems. In fact, in this 27-chapter work, Durkheim explores three main questions that permeate the entire work. [...]

[...] In this sense, we wanted to stop specifically on this point inasmuch as it was symptomatic of Durkheim's thought. Indeed, the temporal dimension is primordial in his examination of social facts, in this case, the French educational system. Social facts therefore inscribe themselves in a longer temporality than human life produced by the entirety of generations. The external framework being the cause of our own conditioning. In fact, focusing on an excerpt recalling the formalization of the national character in the Middle Ages in France seemed pertinent to us to highlight. [...]

[...] 'The future teacher' is therefore the one who will be able to concretize the sociologist's pedagogical wish. Therefore, in conclusion of our discussion, we can assert that Durkheim's works on the sociology of education have generated a scientific approach to educational facts as social functions and that, in this regard, his studies still deserve to be read today. The importance of secondary socialization, that is to say, school, is, according to us, always at the heart of the questions that every student in education science or sociology must ask themselves. [...]