Pour Une Analyse Des Trajectoires De Carriãˆre Des Directions D’ÉTablissement D’Enseignement : Vers Une Instrumentation Biographique Quantitative

School principals play a central role in educational governance, yet their career trajectories remain largely unknown from a longitudinal perspective. This article argues for the necessity of systematically documenting these trajectories and critically examines available instruments and their transposability. Major international surveys (TALIS, NTPS) provide cross-sectional data that fail to capture the sequential and temporal structure of career paths. Studies based on administrative data offer rigorous results but remain inaccessible in most francophone contexts, including Quebec. Biographical instruments (the life history calendar [LHC] and the AGEVEN form) offer methodological potential, supported by Belli’s theory of autobiographical memory (1998), but require substantial adaptation for online self-administration. Drawing on the life course perspective and Stevenson’s analytical framework (2006), this article specifies the conceptual and methodological foundations on which a biographical survey instrument adapted to the career trajectories of school principals should be built. Five design requirements are identified: complete temporal coverage from the first year of teaching, matrix structure with school-year granularity, explicit inclusion of non- linear career states, complementary event-based data, and graphic adaptation for online self-administration. These requirements constitute the specifications for a new instrument currently being developed and pretested.