Effets des représentations sociales sur les pratiques nouvelles: les Tsiganes et l'école
Effects of social representations of new practices: the Gypsies and the school

Summary/Abstract: The Gypsy’s school under-achievements are related to the structure and the dynamics of their social representation of school. The present study aimes demonstrating the fact that during an intercultural encounter between gypsies and non-gypsies social representations have an impact on social practices, especially in the case of school-related practices. Indeed, the group’s cognitive dynamics allow preserving the cultural identity threatened by social practices contrary to the group’s system of values. The results reveal a social representation of school structured along two contradictory organizing principles – tradition and modernity. Therefore the representational dynamics are structured holding the departure point in the periphery substructure. It is activated both by the imposed discourses and practices and by ancestral values that reinterpret some aspects of modernity. This allows interpreting school practices placed within traditional values, apart from their institutional meanings. As a consequence recurrent school practices failed to change the traditional conception of school. Instead, they even generate cognitive dynamics that preserve the traditional ideology transforming it into a powerful defence system.

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