Politiques d’enseignement et coalitions industrialo-universitaires

The object of the analysis is to define a policy of higher education as a socio-symbolic production and account for some of its specific characteristics. The knowledge dispensed by institutions of higher education cannot be considered simply as belonging to scientific disciplines defined a priori and combined rationally with respect to a given set of professional demands. On the contrary it is shown that the act of setting up a curriculum means participating both in the process of producing and limiting the various scientific disciplines and in the elaboration of the social use to be made of the knowledge and know-how constituting these disciplines. A policy of higher education thus accomplishes an arbitration between social groups differing from one another both in their scientific project and in their aims to transform society. Because these cleavages cut through the scientific community and the industrial milieu in particular, an analysis of the action of different coalitions between industry and the university enables the AA. to account for the originality of certain educational policies. An historical study of the educational policies of two French schools of chemical engineering is used to illustrate and validate the AA.s approach.