The network

This website has been created to make an international network visible and to promote links between professionals involved in the practice of institutional pedagogy.

Institutional pedagogy is a educational movement born in France in the 1950s and 1960s, based on Célestin Freinet’s pedagogy (1896-1966) and relying on its cooperative production techniques. The expression “institutional pedagogy” was first coined by Jean Oury at the Freinet congress in Paris in 1958. The adjective “institutional” thus implies the link between pedagogy and institutional psychotherapy, a link that is embodied in the fraternal relationship between Fernand Oury (1920-1998), teacher, and Jean Oury (1924-2014), psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, founder of the clinic in La Borde. The foundation of institutional pedagogy owes much to the contribution of Aida Vasquez (1937-2015), a Venezuelan psychologist who wrote her thesis on the study of human relations in these classes in 1966. This trend has developed, in France and elsewhere, in the different levels of education and a number of educational practices.

The initiative of creating the International Institutional Pedagogy comes from Bruno Robbes, Arnaud Dubois, Patrick Geffard and Patrici Baccou, Françoise Budo, Sylvie Canat, Sylvain Connac, Sébastien Pesce, Gerald Schlemminger, all committed, each in their own way, to the practice of institutional pedagogy.

Many of us have met foreign colleagues interested in institutional pedagogy, in Europe (Germany, Italy, Belgium, Greece) and in the world (Canada, Brazil). These colleagues wish to develop exchanges between themselves and with France.

Light and flexible, this international network therefore aims to create a meeting space, facilitate exchanges and the dissemination of institutional pedagogy between professionals involved in this field, whatever their status: teachers, educators, teacher-researchers, health or social work professionals, etc.

Network members can create a member page. They can then submit information, texts, videos, but also contact each other to consider cooperation in various forms.

(Traduction : Sébastien Pesce)