The role of the teacher in debate situations on sustainable development education themes

Abstract

This text is part of a research conducted in French speaking Swiss schools by the Research Team in Didactics and Epistemology of Social Sciences (ERDESS) at the University of Geneva. It specifically deals with the place and role of the teacher in situations of debate. The point of interest is the influence of habits and school constraints not only in terms of dynamics of interactions but also in terms of content of the exchanges. The analyses of four debates in two classes, one in the primary level, one in the secondary level, show that situations of debate are not immune to the tensions that characterize the school teaching. A triple distinction is used to analyse the role of the teacher regarding the exchanges regulation function that he’s led to endorse.