A humble ambition? Integration goals and division of labour in French-speaking Switzerland primary education

Abstract

Primary teachers are responsible for students basic training all over the world. How are their status and work changing as social expectations increase? A survey conducted in the seven cantons of French-speaking Switzerland shows how a curriculum presented as ambitious copes with generalist teachers’ profession and training, who in turn are required to moderate their pretensions. The data collected reveal tensions and locally negotiated compromises between pedagogical aims of integration on the one hand, and reality of teachers’ division of labour in each canton (or school) on the other. The comparison makes it possible to categorize four main types of statutory scales: those defining a generalist teacher respectively sanctuarized, concentrated, stratified, increased. These results raise questions about actors’ ambivalences but can also inform their debates and future decisions.