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Mots. Les langages du politique, n°138/2025

L'institution scolaire et ses agents à l'épreuve du discours managérial

Edited by David Descamps, Agathe Foudi, Cédric Hugrée, Marie Veniard

Mots. Les langages du politique


The educational institution and its personnel facing managerial discourse

Although managerial discourse has progressively supplanted the state's bureaucratic and planning-oriented discourse in educational institutions, it remains relatively underexamined. Yet, since discourse serves not only to describe reality but also to construct it, examining the forms, circulation, and uses of managerial discourse in the school system can shed light on the transformations affecting this institution and on how these changes impact both the student population and the professionals who work within it (educational and administrative staff). Drawing on a range of academic levels (from primary to higher education), focusing on various actors within the system (primary school teachers, university lecturers, school leaders, teacher unions), and employing diverse methodological approaches (observation, interviews, quantitative text analysis), the contributions in this issue explore how managerial discourse shapes and imposes specific representations of the world on those exposed to it, reflects their ways of thinking and acting, and thereby transforms the social functions of schooling and the meaning that its actors assign to it.