Developing the students’ autonomy in middle school: an exploratory study of French science teachers’ points of view and the expectationsof the school institution

Abstract : We propose an exploratory study comparing the statements of 4 French science teachers to the expectations of the institution regarding the notion of autonomy with the speech of an inspector in science on: (1) what is an autonomous middle school student in science and (2) on the support a teacher can use to develop it. The analytical framework is mainly based on several dimensions of autonomy in science education. We distinguish between pedagogical autonomy and didactic autonomy and characterize the process of autonomisation a pupil according to different dimensions. The analysis of the 5 interviews involves two scales (mesoscopic and microscopic). The comparative analysis of our corpus reveals major differences between the interviewees in terms of pedagogical autonomy and didactic autonomy.