Demonstrating Specificity to Maintain Status. How Remedial Teachers Hold Professional Territory in France's National Education System (2007-2015)

Drawing on archives, interviews and ethnographic surveys in several schools, this paper seeks to analyse the methods whereby a little-known professional group - remedial teachers within France's national education system (also known as `G masters') - continues to maintain its specific expertise and professional territory. Over the period 2007-2012, the profession saw its jurisdiction and its existence come under political threat, in a context of fierce competition with other professionals dedicated to addressing educational failure. Defending their interests through their national organisation (FNAREN), remedial teachers eventually succeeded in maintaining their prerogatives as a result of the change of government in 2012. However, it was essentially through their day-to-day practices in schools that they managed to maintain status, by seeking to demonstrate the exclusivity of their expertise (half-way between `ordinary' teachers and psychologists) and the effectiveness of their solutions. Observing their work in situ, how they build their clientele within schools and their tangible relationships with other professionals also involved in combating educational failure, with whom they are potentially in competition, highlights the way in which they maintain the jurisdiction, credibility and legitimacy of their activity, by emphasising their own professional specificity. (C) 2016 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.