Abstract
This thesis analyses the history of student’s autonomy as an ideal and pedagogical practice within French public education from 1959 to the present day, based on the study of two singular educational institutions: the Ecole Vituve and the Lycée Autogéré de Paris. A polysemous notion, with multiple definitions and fluctuating contours, we have chosen to analyze autonomy in the educational field. Based on a chronological plan, we studied autonomy as a reference for the New education, an idealized vision of education, a lever for social transformation, classroom practice and an educational finality. In a social-historical approach, based on the archives of the institutions and interviews, we were able to study the discourses and practices implemented since the creation of these institutions, which have chosen to make autonomy the backbone of their projects. We were able to clarify Robert Gloton's role in this dynamic. The study of the links between these two specific experiences and the school institution seemed to us to reveal certain changes in the French public education system. In this study, autonomy appears to be an ideal that is always present in education, but also controversial issue with a definition that is always subject to controversies and debates. Nevertheless, autonomy as an educational goal remains a main issue in understanding current and future debates.