Education and territory. A look back on an ill-fitting sociological object

Résumé 0

This article focuses on the challenges of the institutional extension of relations between education and territory (educational decentralization, local educational projects, and so on). After observing that the relationship between education and territory contributes to the blurring of the old divisions between school and out-of-school— i.e., formal and informal—education, the article questions the political and educational meaning of this blurring. It shows that the current trend that is attempting to connect the various educational spheres, while making it possible to fight against some institutional and administrative compartmentalization, also reshuffles the cards between education and socialization, education and leisure, and even education and social control. The article thus develops an analysis of the issues and risks inherent in this form of educational homogenization without educational “counter-powers” through the weakening of alternative educational spaces.