The CIRCEFT (EA 4384) is a research laboratory run by the universities of Paris 8 Vincennes - Saint-Denis(primary institution) and Paris-East Créteil (secondary institution). This laboratory focuses its multi-disciplinary research on producing knowledge on educational policy, processes and issues in contemporary societies.

It welcomes lecturers from different disciplines (mainly from the Learning Sciences, but also Sociology, Language Sciences, French Language and Literature, and English Language and Literature) at Paris 8 University and the ESPE (French School of Teaching and Education) of Paris-East Créteil University

The Unit’s researchers and doctoral students strive to better understand the complex relationships between the contemporary evolutions and contradictions of different educational institutions, and between the processes of creating subjects and subjectivities and their educational and social paths. These comparisons are always discussed in relation to their socio-historical contexts, class and gender relations, their unique and subjective processes and the implications and practices of knowledge and power.

Although these discussions primarily address the Educational Research community and the groups contributing to the field from the Social and Human Sciences, the work carried out at the CIRCEFT Research Unit is closely linked to issues faced by teaching professionals. This connection is expressed through the Unit’s training and support programmes for professionals, and the implementation of educational tools and policies at both a local and national level.

Research areas:

• Clinical Teaching and Training (CLEF)
• Education and Schooling (ESCOL)
• History of Education (HEDUC)

Each of these areas has its own research projects and fields, which are not conducted in parallel or separately, but which are instead structured around four common, cross-disciplinary focus areas:

• The historical and contemporary changes in conceptions of childhood and adolescence, culture and education, and the educational policies and institutions in which they take form and develop their content (education systems, “normal” or “irregular” childhood and teenage institutions, diplomas and curricula, etc.).
• New modes of social division of educational work between different institutional levels (schools, special education, social work, early childhood, childcare, etc.) or between them and other spaces of socialisation and acculturation.
• Examining the processes that produce social, gendered and territorial inequalities with regard to accessing different levels and types of education, academic knowledge and techniques, and the processes surrounding dropping out of school and the associated detachment.
• Epistemological reflection, elaboration of concepts, methodological diversity and creativity, allowing research subjects to be approached from different angles, combining different theoretical and disciplinary approaches and using different kinds of data and materials.