psychotherapeutic and educational activity which entails latent yet inevitable and consistent changes, Rogers says, in all areas where authority and freedom meet: therapy, education, administration, politics, and institutions of all kinds.1365

It is impossibl e to supply a panoramic overview of institutional pedagogy because this pedagogy is a

galaxy of positions and people differentiated over time rather than a theory universally shared by those

who profess it. We limit ourselves to singling out some of the at titudes and innovative motivations

emerging from it.

There are various directions: activism, the class -community and class -laboratory of C. Freinet (1896 - 1966); the non -directive psychology and psychotherapy of C. Rogers (1902 -l987); group dynamics,

with K . Lewis's field and vital space theories (1890 -l947). In its more specific forms, institutional

pedagogy was the offshoot of a protest against oppressive and manipulative social and political

structures which heavily condition the cultural and educative gr owth processes.

1366

Institutional education has as its objective that of transforming institutional formation: school,

classrooms, university laboratories, culture and work groups from ‘instituted’ to 'instituting'. This naturally implies a radical change in the way those taught and those who teach are simultaneously present to one other in an active way. In any kind of authoritarian and bureaucratic government the teacher-educator represents ordinances, programs, goals, methods which are all imposed from on high, and operates within the institution much like a father in his family. Fathers and teachers have a well- defined idea about what they intend to propose as a goal and their task is simply that of finding ways to 'boss' youngsters around without attentionto their aspirations, inclinations, desires and needs. Institutional Pedagogy instead champions the right of individuals and groups to self manage their own human and cultural growth through freely choosing objectives, programs and methods: this is the right to self-management.1367

Pedagogical self -management is an educational system where the teacher gives up his claim to transmit

messages and, from that moment on, defines his educational intervention beginning with the 'medium'

of formation, letting pupils decide on the methods and programs to be used in learning. This is what is

called negative education today.

1368

Given the various orientations pedagogical self -management assumes the forms such as group

dynamics, non -directive method, group - psychotherapy and co -operative work.

1369

The teacher or educator is directly involved in the group, but only as one of its members, at its disposal, at its beck and

call as a facilitator, expert, consultant, adviser.

1370

This way institutional education promotes a

Roma/Brescia, Antonianum/La Scuola 1972, 482 p; M-L. Poeydomenge, L'éducation selon Rogers. Les enjeux de la

non directivité. Paris, Dunod 1984, XIII-194 p.

1365 Cf. C. R. Rogers, Un manfeste personaliste. Fondements d'une politique de la personne. Paris, Dunod-Bordas

1979, XIII-241 p. (original, On personal power. New York, Delacorte Press 1977.

1366 Cf. Les pédagogues institutionelles par J. Ardoino et R. Lourau. Paris, PUF 1994, 128 p.; G. Snyders, Où vont le

pédagogues non-directives? Autorité du maître et liberté des élèves. Paris, PUF 1973, 324 p.; R. Hess, La pédagogie

institutionelle aujourd'hui. Paris, J.-P. Delarge 1975, 142 p.; G. Avanzini, Immobilisme et novation dans l'education

scolaire. Toulouse, Privat 1975, pp. 143-154, Chap III Pédagogie institutionelle et révolution; L.-P. Jouvenet, Horizon

politique des pédagogies non directives. Toulouse, Privat 1982, 291 p.

1367 Cf. M. Lobrot, La pédagogie institutionelle. L'école vers l'autogestion. Paris, Gauthier-Villars 1972: I Part,

Pédagogie et beuracratie, pp. 11-123; II part, Pédagogie et autogestion, pp. 127-277.

1368 Cf. G. Lapassade, L'autogestion pédagogique. Paris, Gauthier-Villars 1971, pp. 5-6. Lapassade interprets it,

however, in a radical 'libertarian' sense leaving it up to groups of teachers to give life to anti-institutions, so-called

'internal institutions' (cf. G. Lapassade, Groupes, Organisations, Institutions. Paris, Gauthier-Villars 1967, pp. 57-64. 1369 G. Ferry, La pratique du travail en groupe. Une expérience de formation d' enseignments. Paris, Dunod 1970, XI-

227 p; M. Lobrot, L'animation non directive des groupes. Paris Payot 1974, 252 p.

1370 With time someone has sensiblyreshaped the earlier radical non-directive approach: cf. D. Hameline, M.-J.

Dardelin, Liberté d'apprendre. Justification d'un enseignement non directif. Paris, Éditions Ouvrières 1967, 341 p. e

Idem, La liberté d'apprendre. Situation II. Rérospective sur un enseignement non-directif. Ibid. 1977, 349 p.