Le "travail curriculaire" des enseignants en éducation physique : du travail prescrit au travail réel

In this doctoral thesis, we are going to analyze the curricular work of teachers in physical education. The curricular work is the sum of all processes of interpretation, adaptation and transformation by the teachers of the prescribed curriculum to make it teachable to students (Tardif & Lessard, 1999). In 2012, the physical education municipal curriculum (PEMC) was implemented for every municipal schools of Cuiabá, in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. However, little was known about the way teachers would integrate this curriculum in their teaching in the classroom. Consequently, our research question is: how do teachers interpret and transform the prescribed curriculum in their classroom? In other words, how do they implement the curriculum? Regarding our theoretical framework, it relies on the sociology of teaching work and on French ergonomics, more specifically the approach of the activity clinic. This is a mixed research, with a stronger accent put on the qualitative perspective. Furthermore, this memoir can be categorized as a research-intervention in accordance with the historical-developmental approach. In the first phase, we distributed a questionnaire to 73 teachers to learn about their perceptions of the PEMC and the professional training they received to implement the curriculum. In the second phase, we conducted a multi- cases study with four teachers – three women and one man. Two of them were novice teachers (T1 and T2) and the other two were experienced (T3 and T4). We consulted documents (the prescribed curriculum, the schools’ educational projects, the teachers’ school planning) and we conducted semi-directed interviews at the start and at the end of the 2015 school year. In addition, we filmed class lessons for a period of two months. During the multi-cases study, we also used the single and crossed self-confrontation method, where we could examine different point of views about the teachers’ activities in the classroom. Of all the major results of the research, we can highlight that: concerning the general perception of the PEMC which was positive, 82.19% of the teachers found it advantageous to teach according to it; concerning the use of the PEMC, almost 80% of the teachers always or almost always use the curriculum to build their yearly school planning, 76.72% use it to plan their classes and 72.61% adapt it before using it. Regarding the obstacles for the implementation of the PEMC, the lack of educational material (41.1%) and inadequate infrastructures (34.25%) are the factors that most prevent the curriculum implementation. Concerning the professional training, 74% of the teachers found it sufficient for the implementation of the PEMC and that it was functional for almost 90% of them. As for the results of the multi- vi cases study, we would like to point out that: the teachers use the PEMC to build their yearly planning, in the long or short term, but they interpret it, adapt it and transform it during teaching in the classroom, in their own way and depending on the knowledge they have of the lessons content, of the curriculum and of the students, the resources and locations available, but always by transforming and adapting it also. In short, the contextual and personal factors of the curricular work influence that adaptation of the curriculum. Also, our study showed that the teachers are interprets, actors, authors and builders of the physical education curriculum taught in class and that the students are co-authors of the lessons with their teachers.

Keyphrases: curriculum, teachers, curricular work, physical education, implementation