Bois, Géraldine <br/><br/>
Excellence in an ordinary profession: The case of school supervisors 

 -  2024.<br/>							 
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<br/><br/> This paper looks at professional excellence –defined as the recognition of a very high degree of competence– in the ordinary profession of school supervisors (called “assistants d’éducation” in France and abbreviated “AED”). The aim is to understand what excellence is made of in such a function requiring a priori few skills, and what conditions make it possible, in terms of social properties of the concerned individuals as well as the context of professional practice. The analysis is based on repeated observations of AED’s work in two “collèges” (middle schools for 11-14 years old pupils) and two “lycées” (high schools for 15-17 year olds, of which one is a vocational school) with contrasting characteristics, and interviews with 26 AED working in these four schools. Focusing on the four AED considered particularly competent in their respective school, we first highlight the forms and sources of this excellence in the two main dimensions of their work. Their ability to supervise students “well” and the seriousness with which they approach their administrative work are analyzed successively, showing that these AED combine dispositions to believe in the value of the tasks to be done with dispositions to act that enable them to do these tasks efficiently. Thirdly, we examine the conditions under which these dispositions are activated, by exposing and explaining their apprehension of their work as a “real” job.