Introduction

French public school was first established contrary to territories, or at least contrary to territorial identities. The desire to create a school for all resulted in the plan to establish the same school everywhere, because this alone could convey the values of the French Republic as well as national feeling. As pointed out by Prost [PRO 92, p. 63]: “One of the functions of primary school was to contribute to the unification of minds. Henceforth, the particularities (“dialects” for example) had to be eradicated: the common reference of all students had to solely be the national framework, both for the study of language as well as for history (“French civilization” in old textbooks) or geography (which taught the “natural boundaries” of the territory). By setting up the predominant primary school system known as “people’s school”, the conditions for decontextualization or “uprooting” were realized, which was to facilitate integration into the national community: “following the Revolution, the French model claimed to be a unified political body, and was developing the territory in a centralizing way, asserting the primacy of the capital and authorities residing there; the primordial, if not unique, sense of belonging to the “nation” being inculcated in education” [BER 05, p. 11]. At the same time, however, education was given the mission of participating in the “methodical socialization of the younger generation”, in other words, developing in the child “a certain number of physical, intellectual and moral states, which are demanded of him/her by both the political society as a whole and the special milieu for which he/she is specifically designed” ([DUR 03 & 51], 1st ed., 1922), which implies adaptation to the socioeconomic context, including its territorial dimension. The issue of the relationship between school (in the generic sense of the term) and its territory was therefore posited from the outset, and from the end of the 19th Century it formed a central aspect of education policies, which would attempt (most of the time without success) to reconcile two imperatives: one of political nature, that of the national unity of public schools, and the other socioeconomic in nature, including the adaptation of education to local conditions to promote local development and the participation of school education to the modernization of the economy.

To these objectives would be added, after 1960, the taking into account of the inequalities of education and academic success. Alongside the socioeconomic and cultural determinants of these inequalities, the analyses of which were carried out by the sociology of education (Bernstein, Bourdieu and Passeron, Baudelot and Establet), works which were often sponsored or financed by public authorities (those of INED1 or DEP2 for example) highlighted the consequences of the territorial distribution of educational provision on trajectories and academic performances. Progressively, the extension of the education system vertically (extension of study period) and horizontally (diversification of educational programs), the widening of access to studies and the (relative) democratization of access to diplomas [BAU 89, DUR 02] as well as the emergence of a more utilitarian conception of education [TAN 86] based on the “competency model” (and not just on that of “knowledge”), changed the relationship between the school and its territory.

At the same time, the territories involved in the increased competitiveness dynamics linked to the comparative advantages between areas witnessed a strengthening of the assertion of the need for a return to the local system and an identity demarcation. The rise of local assertions and regional languages, the typicity of terroirs and heritages, the multiplication of quality labels, etc., were increasingly found, directly or indirectly, in schools and education in the broad sense.

It was from the 1980s that education science started to focus on the concept of territory and, more broadly, on the territorial contexts of education. First, it was the spatial dimension resulting from the work of geographers that served as a framework for a number of territorialized education analyses [GUM 80], continued today within the framework of studies on spatial inequalities [CAR 14] or the Observatoire de l'école rural (Rural School Observatory) – Observatoire education et territories (Education and Territory Obsevatory) [ALP 01]. Then, in the 1990s, emphasis was successively placed on territorialized education policies, educational territory planning policies [DER 92, CHA 94, VAN 01], on the “effects” such as “master effect”, “class effect”, “establishment effect”, “circumscription effect” [DUR 88, BRE 94] and finally in the 2000s on territory effects [CHA 13]. Just before this last period, the Evaluation and Long-Term Planning Department (DEP) of the French Ministry of Education [DAV 98] highlighted (which was a surprise to many) the right level of success of students of the schools in rural areas, which was confirmed, in particular, by all the works of the Rural School Observatory [ALP 01].

On another level, at the end of the 1980s, the territory appeared as a pedagogical as well as didactic opportunity that facilitated learning and developed students’ motivation. Many pedagogical movements (following, in particular, the Freinet school) claimed this stance, which was usually accompanied by great attention given to local relations (with local elected representatives, association movement, etc.). Later, it generally constituted the subject of innovative educational practices, such as “learning territory” [JAM 11] or the “educating village” [FEU 02].

At the same time, since the 1990s, with the emergence of environmental education, followed by education for sustainable development and heritage education, there seemed to be an emerging link between education and territories. The rise of education à, “education for”, in National Education, the emergence of a field of research structured around this theme, such as continuity beyond explicit incentives included in the Rocard law of 1985 within agricultural education, of a strong link between the institutions and territories, contributed to making them education “actors” in the sense that they impacted on school and university curricula [BAR 12]. But “education for” can also take a utilitarian function in projects of economic valuation of territories, hence raising the issue of legitimacy and ethics [BAR 13].

The primary objective of this summative book on the topic “Education and Territories” is to re-examine the school combination, understood in the broad sense (in France: school, junior high and high school3), and territory, according to three key aspects and fundamental questions which underlie its internal organization:

• – the first part of the book focuses on historical developments, with a specific focus on the current situation, of the various links that have gradually developed between education and its territory. The contributions that make up this first part attempt to identify and characterize the relationship between the school and its territory, which has been established over a long period of time. Beyond that, the contributors attempt to specify the contemporary modalities within this framework that are of key significance to emerging innovations. They thus question old institutional arrangements (school projects, for example) as new (educational projects in territories, for example), as well as original and innovative forms recently adopted by education in relation to its territories (“learning territories”, “educating villages”, etc.) and new curricular arrangements such as “education for” (for example education for sustainable development);
• – Part 2 covers the role of territories in education and their effects on education in terms of the pedagogical and didactic innovations that have developed. In this context, it asks whether and how the territory, in terms of learning, can be included in the strict discipline (geography, in particular), in the multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary area (sustainable development, environmental education, for example) and in educational partnership projects. It also addresses in this respect the question of the place currently occupied by the territorial system, which gives meaning to professorial activity, in the construction of the professional identity of teachers and, beyond that, the possible necessity introducing the territorial dimension in their initial training;
• – finally, the third part deals with the findings and analyses resulting from field research, including aspects of the topic of more theoretical education and territories, by mobilizing its operational concepts. It thus poses various successive questions for this purpose. To what extent and through which processes do territories and territorialities weigh on education? Are “territory effects” at work to this end? More precisely, are some of the observed inequalities in education and orientation of territorial origin? Do the public policies carried out really correspond to the needs of education in the territories? Are the rural educational characteristics observed in the past still relevant today, or are the rural and urban schools converging?

All of these questions are based on numerous field studies carried out in multiple laboratories...