Thesis defense by Maïté Eugène

Maïté Eugène will defend her thesis on October 18, 2021, with a view to obtaining a PhD in Education and Training Sciences from the University of Montpellier.

Thesis title:Non-readers put to the test in literature classes. A study of non-reading in school in a 10th grade class.

The defense will take place at 1:30 p.m. in lecture hall no. 011, at Paul Valéry Montpellier 3 University, Saint-Charles campus.

Composition of the jury:

Ms. Marie-France Bishop, Professor Emeritus, CY Cergy Paris University, Rapporteur
Mr. Stéphane Bonnéry, PR, Paris 8 Vincennes Saint-Denis University, Examiner
Mr. Jean-Louis Dufays, PR, UCLouvain, Rapporteur
Mr. François Le Goff, PR, Toulouse II Jean Jaurès University, Examiner
Ms. Brigitte Louichon, PR, University of Montpellier, Director
Ms. Patricia Richard-Principalli, MCF HDR, University of Montpellier, Examiner

Thesis summary:

This thesis focuses on non-reading in schools, particularly among high school students, i.e., students who shirk their school obligation to read the works they are studying in French class. This phenomenon has been relatively undocumented, even though sociology and education have taken an interest in non-readers. It raises questions about the boundaries between reading and non-reading and the practices of teaching literature. The aim of my work is to shed light on this phenomenon through field research. Having followed a 10th-grade class at a general and technological high school for one school year, I sought to describe and understand the practices of non-readers in school (NLS). Starting from the definition of non-reading as an activity, as constructed by P. Bayard in his book Comment parler des livres que l'on n'a pas lus ? (How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read, 2007), I collected statements from students (questionnaires and interviews), their schoolwork (oral and written), and filmed literature classes. Classifying students as academic readers or non-readers poses significant theoretical and methodological problems. Once the classification tool was developed, my work revealed that academic non-reading is not a marginal phenomenon in this 10th grade class. However, being an NLS is not a status, as there are many different practices of academic (non-)reading. Similarly, NLSs appear in a wide variety of forms. Rarely inactive or unproductive, NLS students deploy multiple and sometimes effective strategies to compensate for their non-reading, both before and during class sessions devoted to works they have not read. These strategies can be compared with literature teaching practices. The work done in class to understand the works appears to be decisive in understanding the practices of NLS. Analysis of NLS productions (oral and written) shows that it is possible for an NLS to forge a special link with the phantom book (Bayard, 2007), through the mediation of literature teaching. Some NLS even seem to be more involved in literature classes than some school readers. However, this observation does not apply to all NLS, and my work has resulted in a typology of NLS that distinguishes between converted NLS, perplexed NLS, and resistant NLS. This dynamic typology hopes to open up new avenues for the teaching of literature by emphasizing that it can even affect NLS.