Jacques Ginestie

The Industrial Project Method in French Industry and in French Schools

The introduction of technology education courses for all French pupils in middle schools was strongly linked to a project called IPM. It is based pm the idea of an industrial project method (IPM) whereby an enterprise puts a new industrial project onto the market. The main idea in IPM is to provide a teaching method by which teachers organize classroom time. The link between the two was so evident that it became the fundamental reference for technology education in France. However, the same evidence hides some real difficulties in formalizing the knowledge and concepts to be brought to bear in a technology education class.The aim of this paper is to present two surveys of the practical implementation of IPM. The first looks at how companies proceed when they decide to put a new product onto the market. The second analyses how teachers organize their teaching using this procedure. Based on the outcomes of the surveys, we will present some references for technology education and discuss its impact on school organization.

How Pupils Solve Problems in Technology Education and What They Learn

As is the case in several countries, the development of technology education in France involves a process of transmitting inter-generational knowledge aimed at children to develop their understanding of the technical world in which they live and to which they will contribute in structuring and helping to evolve. This process is, first and foremost, a cultural one; it is a matter of leading children to acquire knowledge that is socially shared by society. Beyond the social sharing of existing knowledge, gateways for children to enter into the adult world are also targeted. One of the roles of schooling is a social one that aims at educating future citizens by allowing them to build the knowledge they will need in order to be able to live and act responsibly within society. The notion of the school’s social role exists from the moment that a society, using its political leverage, decides to hand the responsibility for conveying the social knowledge that governs it to a teacher, so that children use the learning of such knowledge to evolve socially.

Technical Objects Between Categorisation and Learning: An exploratory case study in French middle school

In this article we present a review of literature on the concept of Artefact, Tool and Technical Object in the light of in sociocultural approach. Particular attention is given to present and discuss the French research tradition on the Technical Object and Technological education. The aim is to give a broad perspective to explore the mediation between the individual and their environment.

A Critique of Technology Education for All in a Social and Cultural Environment

As in many countries, technology education (TE) has been introduced into general education in France, where it was introduced in 1985. The initial curriculum expressed a real will to position it in a social science perspective in terms of the relationship humans have with their technical environment on the one hand and, on the other hand, how this technical environment organises social relations between human beings. Thirty years later, it is clear that this orientation has largely failed and that the teaching of technology today is far removed from the original intention as regards both elementary and secondary education. The purpose of this article is not to trace the history of the last 30 years but to understand why such ambition has failed, through a critical study of choices as well as lack of engagements of educational authorities.

Primary Technological Education for All in France

Understanding the contemporary technical environment and the socio-technical investment accompanying it is essential to the development of a country and of its citizens. Technological education contributes to this in different ways and at different levels within the education system. Its integration into general education in France is recent. This chapter is organised into two parts.