Autonomous workshops and individual Montessori-type activities: An analysis of their effects on learning and inequalities

Résumé En

This chapter analyzes the forms of autonomous work that can be observed in French école maternelle by comparing two types of situations: "autonomous workshops" and individual Montessori type activities. The mobilized data come from two field studies carried out in 2010-2011 and in 2016-2017 in seven classes of grande section (third and last year of French école maternelle, addressed to children aged 5-6) located in contrasting social environments (priority education classes and “ordinary” classes). The point of view adopted is based on the sociology of pedagogy proposed by Basil Bernstein and its extensions and on works about the construction of educational inequalities in école maternelle. This contribution is divided into three parts. The first part outlines the theoretical and conceptual framework underlying the results presented. The second presents the most common situations of autonomous work observable in grande section, called “autonomous workshops”. The third one develops the case of Montessori type autonomous activities which are developed in certain classes. In a transversal way, the paper highlights two main processes underlying the autonomous school activities which produces school inequalities: firstly the weak cognitive framing of activities and the little possible scaffolding that results from this; secondly the accentuation of the gaps in exposure to the most academic knowledge in the case of Montessori type activities. These processes tend to close off the possibilities of revising learning for pupils who have not already mastered it because of their previous school or family learning, and thus run the risk of accentuating inequalities within school classes from the first years of schooling.