Educational Sciences: An important plural regarding research

In this lecture, delivered during a study day devoted to the Educational Sciences, which took place in January 1982 in Sèvres, the author takes position, particularly with regard to research work, in favor of the plural of the syntagma “Educational Sciences”. She affirms her attachment to the specific way in which each scientific discipline constructs its objects, its questions, its approaches and its theoretical framework, and her mistrust with regard to conceptual borrowings from one discipline to another, which risk creating illusions for the researchers themselves by plugging a gap in knowledge and preventing questioning, thus having little chance of advancing thought. This does not imply the rejection of all interdisciplinary work, provided that syncretism is avoided, nor does it imply that it is not useful and profitable for training in Educational Sciences to allow students and teachers to be able to clarify educational realities and practices through their familiarity with several bodies of knowledge. But this reflection questions the idea according to which the Educational Sciences could be, in the scientific and epistemological sense of this term, a unique and integrated discipline.‪