Conference Présentation > Call for papers

Deadline: October2017, 15th

Call for Papers
SFERE-Provence 2018 Conference

“Learning and Education” Conditions, contexts and innovations for school, academic and professional achievement
11-13 April 2018 Marseille (France)

The Conference is organised by the Federative structure for study and research on education in Provence (SFERE-Provence) of Aix-Marseille University. It aims at breaking down the barriers between disciplines so as to develop knowledge in the teaching, learning and training sectors, either about educational organisations or institutionalised training systems. Working in partnership with several research laboratories, the federative structure enhances the visibility of the research policies pursued, and therefore leads to better coordination and greater social and scientific impacts of research on education.

The Conference intends to question the conditions required for school achievement through 4 major themes:

• Theme 1 “Language skills and communication” aims at highlighting the importance of language and communication skills to the proper development of core competencies.
• Theme 2 “Uses of the body and education” focuses on interdisciplinary approaches relating to the uses of the body in the activity student/learner – teacher/trainer in learning, education and training contexts.
• Theme 3 “Territories, trajectories and mobility” tackles the issue of educational, social and migratory inequalities.
• Theme 4 “Creativity and innovation” deals with pedagogical innovation within different teaching and learning systems.

All these themes intend to promote interdisciplinary research while respecting each discipline’s particularities. All levels of study are covered (primary, secondary and tertiary level). International work will be greatly appreciated. Two types of communication are allowed: empirical research and state of the art.

Theme 1: Language skills and communication 
Marie-Laure Barbier (PSYCLE) and Johannes Ziegler (LPC)

Current evolutions regarding the “knowledge-based economy” lead to increased shared information and more diversified contents, types of users, communication tools, intercultural and multilingual exchanges. These evolutions are characterised by communication between individuals from all over the world who need to interact and resolve complex problems. In this context, language and communication skills have never before been so much required (in writing in particular), and research studies focusing on the development of core competencies in literacy are a urgent concern at the European scale (Europe 2020, ISCH COST Action IS1401, ISCH COST Action IS1404). This research topic brings up a global reflection on the development of the adaptive cognitive skills required for reading, writing and communicating remotely, on the plurality of language practices used in writing, whether individual or collective, on the diversity of these practices in educational or professional contexts, and on their potential didactics. It promotes interdisciplinary studies so as to link different research levels while respecting the specificities of the disciplines addressed (psycho-linguistics, language sciences, educational sciences, information and communication sciences, sociology, etc.). It aims at fostering dialogue and convergence of studies that question the development of language and communication skills in a learning perspective.

Key words: reading, writing, language practices, remote communication, didactics of writing

Theme 2: Uses of the body and education  
Mariagrazia Cairo Crocco (CEPERC), Pascal Simonet (ADEF) and Jean Luc Velay (LNC)

From an anthropological point of view, the body is “man’s first and most natural instrument” (Mauss, 1934/1950, p. 372). It is at the same time a biological anonym object and a constructed object (Canguilhem, 1990/2002). This raises questions about the uses of the body in this twofold dimension.

Questions dealing with the uses of the body relate to various disciplines (philosophy, anthropology, history, sociology, psychology, neurosciences). This enables knowledge creation by taking into account different approaches. In this context, the field of education (and training) is emblematic because it contributes to the understanding of the relationships to human body as they have been historically constructed and as they are conducted in educational institutions and among training circles, and more broadly, in the social space.

For instance, in the theoretical context of embodied cognition, some authors suggest reconsidering the way we address the question of education by restoring the body’s central role in students’ activities. Other approaches, in the humanities and social sciences, examine the way the body is used in teacher/student and trainer/learner relationships in learning situations (ergonomics of education professionals’ activity, activity phenomenology, professional didactics…).

Information from different academic fields will be treated so as to study the uses of the body in a gender perspective, links between body, emotions and affects, the role of the body in the conception of laicism, the place of the body in health education, the question of the body for disabled persons, the uses of the body in arts and physical and sporting activities…

What research and reflections have been conducted on these issues? What answers do they provide to the educational world?  What are the goals, the methodologies, the results and the limits of these studies? What benefits can we expect from this comparative approach?

Key words: body, activity, learnings, teaching function

Theme 3: Territories, trajectories and mobility 
Noemie Olympio (ADEF), Caroline Hache (ADEF)  and Magali Ballatore (LAMES)

The analysis of academic trajectories receives great attention in France and at an international level, as reflected, for example, by the increased number of quantitative data on this topic (investigation by the Evaluation, Forecasting, and Performance Department (DEPP), generational investigation, panelisation bias of PISA data in some countries, etc.). Longitudinal, qualitative and quantitative analyses are useful for highlighting how complex academic paths are and for showing a certain number of inequalities. In addition, logics of competition and mobility (or non-mobility) are being increasingly studied on a comparative basis that differentiates educational spaces and segments within a country and/or between several countries (Ballatore, 2010; Felouzis, Maroy, Van zanten, 2013; Courty, 2014; Pasquali, 2014). These studies reveal new problems, which relate to competition initiated between institutions by the European joined up public policies that are not without effect on the growing burden of social heritage in the trajectories of people involved, as well as on the renewed spatialisation of inequalities in terms of educational resources between territories.

Within the French education system, these inequalities in terms of trajectories, social and migration backgrounds have been proven. The school system currently struggles to offer all students access to equal conditions for school achievement (CNESCO report, 2016). Socio-economic situations of territories, their history and their characteristics then have a direct or indirect impact on youth educational trajectory. Surroundings affect not only students’ academic success, but also their aims in life. Depending on the place in which they attend school, students follow different academic paths, have different educational aspirations as well as a different relationship with the concept of mobility. When did the situation start changing? Since when have inequalities persisted or decreased? Why and in which political contexts?

Education policies, school dropout and its background, past and current school migration/mobility, the burden of social background but also on- and off-the-job training and employment of recent graduates are all the topics that will be discussed under this research heading, on a comparative basis between different countries. The goal is to use different disciplines (economics, sociology, political and educational sciences, history and geography mainly) to reflect on these questions by putting research on students’ educational trajectories (from primary to tertiary education) in perspective.

Key words: mobility/trajectories, educational policies, inequalities

Theme 4: Creativity and innovation  
Martine Gadille (LEST), Marco Cappellini (LPL), Eric Tortochot (ADEF) and Jean-François Hérold (ADEF) 

This focal area aims at questioning the relevance of pedagogical innovation (Walder, 2014) as a process in line with teaching/learning situations, among others through the introduction of digital technologies and/or innovative spaces. Innovative spaces are intended as co-designed physical and/or virtual spaces which provide users with new practices for knowledge building and sharing (meta-conception process [Mailles-Viard Metz, Loisy & Leiterer (2011)]). Structured or spontaneous dissemination of pedagogical innovations makes it easier to understand how new individual and/or collective strategies for teaching or learning are developed (Albero & Safourcade, 2014). Processes of innovation in teaching-learning situations should be understood as an adaptive activity relating to the situation of an actor who interprets a task, demands and carries out the task both in terms of physical activities and of thinking processes (Bertone & Saujat, 2013).
The adaptation is based on teaching competencies which are applied coherently in response to a particular situation, but which cannot be applied in the same way to another situation.

Studies proposed in this thematic area may research the relationship between technical innovation and innovative uses (Paquelin, 2009), as well as the processes that lead teachers to continuously design new teaching-learning situations. Several dimensions relating to the various actors in education may be addressed: 
1. (Co-) construction of rationalities about the educational activity relating the educational work and subject didactics;
2. Building of relationships to knowledge in terms of identity and epistemology;
3. Co-design and creativity of teachers and pupils/students in learning situations.

This focal area promotes interdisciplinary studies in order to combine various research levels taking into account the specificities of each discipline (educational sciences, language sciences, information and communication science, economy, sociology, psychology, work psychology, ergonomics, etc.).

 Key words: pedagogical innovations, innovative space, learning environment, (co-)design, uses

Reviewing Panel

Axe 1:
Lucile Chanquoy (Université de Nice, France)
Marielle Leijten (Université d'Anvers, Belgique)
Victoria Johansson (Lund University, Suède)

Axe 2:
Céline Chatigny (Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada)
Guillaume Durand (ESPE Nantes, France)
Patrizia Magnoler (Université de Macerata, Italie)

Axe 3:
Jean-Yves Rochex  (CIRCEFT, Université Paris 8, France)
Marco Pitzalis  (University of Cagliari, Italy)
Mostafa Tarek (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, France)

Axe 4:
Christopher Dede (Harvard Graduate School of Education, Massachusetts)
Denis Bédard (Université de Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada)
Sylvie Cartier (Université de Montréal, Canada) 

Key Notes Speakers

Axe 1:
José Moraïs (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
Axe 2:
Manlio Iofrida (Università di Bologna, Bologna)
Axe 3:
Mostafa Tarek  (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, France)
Axe 4:
Christopher J. Dede (Harvard Graduate School of Education, Massachusetts)