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Faculty of Education - University of Montpellier

Compar(ais)ons in literature didactics

Twenty years after the first meetings of researchers in the didactics of literature (Fourtanier, Langlade, Rouxel, 2001), it is noteworthy that projects involving groups of researchers whose aims and/or methodologies have an asserted comparative dimension are currently developing concomitantly.

The Geneva-based work of the GRAFElitt group,(Ronveaux & Schneuwly, 2018 ; Gabathuler, 2016), is a prime example. They question the way literature is taught across the school grades in the small territory of French-speaking Switzerland, thus also enabling us to understand what is at play on a wider scale. The GARY project (Brunel etal., 2018) seeks to document students' reading skills and literary teaching practices in France, Switzerland, Belgium and Quebec. The PELAS group (Plissonneau, Boutevin, Bazile, 2017) is investigating analytical reading teaching practices in France at^{3e and2nde} levels. In Montpellier, the group of researchers involved in the TALC project (Louichon, 2019) is working to describe and understand the practices of Cycle 3 teachers (end of elementary school and first year of junior high school). The HELiCE network[1]examines the history of literature teaching from a comparative perspective, on a European scale (Louichon, Bishop & Ronveaux, 2017; Denizot & Ronveaux, 2019; Belhadjin & Perret, forthcoming).

However exemplary and visible this dynamic may be, we must not forget earlier, precursory work (Dubois-Marcoin, 2008) or work carried out on smaller but equally heuristic scales (for example, Sève, 2008; Marlair & Dufays, 2009; Hébert, 2013; Claude, 2017).

In these works, the comparison may concern different school segments (primary, secondary, general and vocational education), or thresholds (between primary and secondary, for example), different geographical, cultural and/or linguistic areas, objects taught, exercises, pupils according to age and curriculum, gender, socio-economic characteristics, historical periods, curricula (Bishop, forthcoming). It can also concern the uses of literature or the reception of works in school or out-of-school contexts (Dias-Chiaruttini, 2015; Bonnéry & Joigneaux, 2015).

The strong tendency observed with regard to the comparative dimension of certain works nevertheless leads us to wonder about the lesser share given to other approaches or other objects in the field of literature didactics research. For example, the results or analyses of international comparative surveys (such as PISA or PIRLS) are relatively little used (Bart & Daunay, 2016). Literature didacticians, largely open to the French-speaking world, seem rather reluctant to take up issues on a wider scale (Fraisse, 2012) or relating to non-French-speaking spaces (Witte & Sâmihăian, 2013). Similarly, at the last colloquium of the Association pour des Recherches Comparatistes en Didactique (ARCD), we heard very little about the teaching/learning of literature. Interdidactic work (Biagioli & Torterat, 2012) is also virtually absent from our meetings, even though the question of the relationship between French and literature is often raised (Dias-Chiarrutini & Lebrun, forthcoming). The ^17thRencontres focused on "confrontations, exchanges and articulations between didactic approaches" concerning the teaching of literature "in dialogue with the arts" (Chabanne, 2019), and the ^XXthRencontres questioned the perspective of literature's contribution to aestheticeducation. It may come as a surprise that the approach to literature asartisticpractice, the teaching of literature as practice, remains marginal, a central issue in other arts didactics or in arts education for the balance between cultivating, analyzing andpracticing.

Finally, it is quite surprising to note that comparative literature is not an object of study in the didactics of literature. Although formally reserved for the university level, this discipline (Franco, 2016) is part of the training of all literature teachers, and we might wonder whether these acquired skills are not applied in the secondary curriculum.

Proposals will therefore fall into one or other of the following categories:

AXIS 1. The aim here is to examine the comparative approaches adopted in research into the didactics of literature.

What are the research goals? Does the research have comparative aims, or does it develop comparative methodologies? Are the comparative hypotheses research hypotheses or methodological hypotheses? Do they have strictly comprehensive aims? Do they also have transformative aims, and under what conditions? What objects are being compared? What methodologies are used? How are data constructed, collected and cross-referenced? How are observables selected and analyzed? What focus should be adopted? What analytical frameworks can be used for comparison?

AXIS 2:Opening up the field to new areas, new questions and new objects. This axis will welcome contributions that solicit, discuss or adopt the frameworks of comparative education (Meuris, 2008), comparative didactics (Mercier A., et al., 2002), interdidactics (Biagioli & Torterat, 2012), or more simply the dialogue of didactics (Chabanne, 2019). Questions and works relating to international comparative surveys will find a place here, as will those concerning the didactics of comparative literature.

AXIS 3 (Special doctoral students)

Twenty years after the first Rencontres, the Rencontres de Montpellier are also intended to provide a privileged space for doctoral students. Of course, they can join in the common framework (axes 1 and 2) of the comparison. However, a specific space for the presentation of theses in progress in the field of literature didactics, designed as a training and meeting place for emerging work, is specifically dedicated to them.

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[1]" History of the Teaching of Literature. European Comparison". This European network was initiated by Marie-France Bishop.