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.