Two months after the assassination of Samuel Paty, in a vast investigation the Jean-Jaurès Foundation questioned teachers about the phenomena of protests against secularism and religious claims.
Four in five professors say they have already been confronted at least once during their career with a claim related to religious beliefs or practices other than Catholic, including 59% in their current establishment.
These demands are of various types: 65% of teachers point to absences linked to the exercise of worship or the celebration of a religious holiday, 47% to requests for confessional meals in canteens and especially 40% to absences of young girls from physical education and sports classes (with or without medical certificates),
One in two teachers censor themselves
Less important but not insignificant phenomena: 28% say they have observed in their classes refusals to enter religious places during school trips and 21% refusals to give a helping hand to someone in the name of religious convictions.
According to Ioannis Roder, director of the Jean-Jaurès foundation, “beyond religious claims concerning various aspects of school life, our investigation also shows that these claims can give rise to disputes concerning the content of the lessons. Thus, teachers more than a third (36%), during their career, have encountered challenges to teaching or teaching content in the name of religious, philosophical, political convictions, and 34% say they have encountered during their career challenges to educational activities “. These challenges to school teaching have increased by 7 points since 2018 (Ifop survey on the same subject), passing the 50% mark of teachers concerned (53%).
Thus 49% of the teachers questioned affirmed to have already self-censored in their teaching of religious questions during their career in order not to cause possible incidents in their class, i.e. 13 additional points since 2018 (Ifop survey). These disputes are expressed more in the establishments of priority education networks (REP) with 20 more points located outside REP (34% against 14%).
Very concerned physical education and life sciences courses
In secondary education, 40% say they have already been confronted within their school with challenges to the principle of secularism in matters of school catering, some also pointing to tense situations during school trips due to religious convictions.
Regarding the challenge of teaching, three disciplines are particularly affected: 49% indicate that these challenges took place during physical education and sports, 29% during a moral and civic education course, 29% during science.
For Ioannis Roder, “some forms of disputes seem to be declining compared to 2018: this is the case in history-geography in particular, but also in letters-philosophy, in the arts, in technology or in vocational education. An optimistic vision would grow. to think that the training of the teachings of these disciplines would bear fruit. But a less optimistic hypothesis can be put forward: the reactions of the educational institution, now more systematic and therefore better known in the face of protests, may lead students to less come forward during these courses so as not to cause problems “.
The Foundation’s conclusion is in any case clear, faced with diversified but clearly identified forms of religious separatism at school, more and more teachers are indeed under pressure. They are waiting for reactions from the public authorities.
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