Abstract

VILLIERS-BOUTHEON, Laurence. Primary school principals face situations that they find complex: a comprehensive approach to dual strategies. Rev. Diálogo Educ. [online]. 2018, vol.18, n.59, pp.1291-1311.  Epub Feb 05, 2020. ISSN 1981-416X.  https://doi.org/10.7213/1981-416x.18.059.ds14.

We are interested in how primary school principals deal with situations they consider complex. In particular, we focus on what a school principal in French Polynesia says about this situation through a survey interview. The constructed interpretative framework is based on The Paradox and the System of Barel (1989) which gives access to the representations of the individual. The situation considered complex as apprehended as a system, is studied through the constraint summoned by the action of Another which opposes the constraint induced by one of the institutional attributions of the director. This double constraint establishes the logical levels of the situation (the system) and constitutes infra-systems that maintain fusion-separation relations. Then the constraints in opposition deliver a contradictory meaning and the primary school principal perceives the paradox of the situation. To master the paradox, it implements a double strategy through the triangulation of relations that allows us to grasp the process of meaning production. The combinations between actors engaged by third parties subject / object proceed by actualization / potentiation of relations and form a paradoxical strategy of compartmentalisation. Thus, the school director masters the situation deemed complex by a game of visibilization / invisibilization of relations to make “as if” the paradox did not exist.

Keywords : Complex; Paradox; Double strategy; Compartmentalization; Triangulation; Actualization; Potentiation.

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