Working for gender equality in the school: between individual experience and institutional demand, an uncertain encounter

This article presents research conducted to clarify the obstacles to taking gender into account in the school - a theme which is actually one of its stated goals. To this aim, I chose to focus on the minority of teachers, women and men, engaged in "girls/boys" issues in their work in high school. Building on the theory of "social experience" developed by F. Dubet (1994) and his thesis of a "decline of the institutional program" (ibid, 2002), I attempted to understand the sense of their actions. The dozen comprehensive interviews conducted constitute only an initial step. But it emerges from analyzing them that the practices of this minority owe little to the promptings of the educational institution. Each individual's personal history seems to be the principal cognitive resource to justify and guide that person's actions. The weight of that personal history would appear to strongly block any group dynamic.