THE IUFM AND INITIAL TEACHER-TRAINING IN FRANCE - SOCIOPOLITICAL ISSUES AND THE CULTURAL DIVIDE

As part of wide-ranging educational reforms initiated in 1989, the str ucture and organisation of initial teacher training in France have bee n radically reshaped. The long-standing binary provision made for prim ary and secondary training by the ecoles normales and the universities respectively, each with its own traditions and jealously-preserved cu lture, has been replaced by a single new institution, the Institut Uni versitaire de Formation des Maitres. The process of transition has pro ved difficult, largely because of the outraged resistance shown by uni versity and secondary school interests to the inclusion in the trainin g programmes not only of an element of professional studies common to both primary and secondary trainees but also of a component concerned with teaching methodologies and other aspects of classroom practice. T his paper traces the debates surrounding the painful birth of the IUFM s, which offers interesting contrasts with reforms of initial teacher training in other countries and especially the UK.