Didactique de la géographie et formation initiale des enseignants spécialistes : conception et première évaluation du nouveau dispositif de formation initiale des enseignants de géographie du Secondaire supérieur à la HEP Vaud

Geography as a school subject is specifically thought for and by the schools. The contents of the school subject, nowadays, do not reflect the concerns and the evolution of the discipline as such. Nevertheless, official curricula set school objectives that address issues affecting the world and people's lives. These issues are coherent with the ones addressed by geography as a social science, that is to say the study of how people and their environment interact and how societies are interconnected through space. On an every day basis, Geography as a school subject is most of the time reduced to accumulating knowledge outside any given context. This knowledge may even be partially untrue or old and the related activities focus on low cognitive tensions. These practices do not contribute to the learners' understanding of the world because it does not allow them to build a geographical competence, which they. will need as future citizens in order to make responsible choices when they are confronted to questions related to how the locations of human and physical features are influenced by each other and how they interact across space. The central part of the text relies on the ideas and the processes discussed in the publications, which constitute the published file; it is divided into two parts. The first part (chapter 4) presents a didactic approach, which gives meaningful insights into Geography as a school subject and shows a brief account of the theoretical background that supports it. This socio-constructivist approach relies on the main following features: a priming stage (élément déclencheur), which presents geographical knowledge as an issue to be explored, discussed or solved; the issue is given to learners;. the planning of the teaching-learning sequence in small units launched by the main issue in the priming stage ; the interconnections of geographical knowledge with integrative concepts ; the synthetic stage or reporting stage where final concepts and knowledge are put together in order to be learned. Such an approach allows learners to re-invest the knowledge they have built themselves. This knowledge is organised by geographical integrative concepts, which represent true thinking operative tools and with which key issues in the geographical thinking are associated. The second part of the text (chapter 5) displays the didactic principles that governed the conception of the new initial training course for the future upper secondary school teachers at the HEP Vaud. The ambition of this course is to prepare future teachers to plan and realize the teaching of geography that provides pupils with the tools to understand better how people and their environment interact and how societies are interconnected through space. One of the tools for the teachers is the conceptual framework, whose most salient interest is to be relevant at every stage of the preparation and planning of the teaching, including the necessary epistemological reflection that should always be present. The synthesis of the text starts with a short account of the first evaluation of the new course. Various reflections on the future concerns and issues, that the didactics and methodology of Geography will be confronted with, constitute the synthesis.

Affaires de patrons, usages de la frontière : géographie des réseaux marchands entre Niger, Bénin et Nigéria

Résumé L'objectif de la thèse est de comprendre le mode d'organisation économique spécifique aux petits centres urbains qui composent les espaces frontaliers sahéliens, en s'interrogeant sur leur concurrence ou leur complémentarité éventuelle à l'intérieur d'un régime de spatialité particulier. En s'appuyant sur l'exemple du carrefour économique de Gaya-Malanville-Kamba situé à la frontière entre le Niger, le Bénin et le Nigeria, il questionne le rôle de la ville-frontière ainsi que le jeu des acteurs marchands localement dominants, à partir de quatre grandes interrogations : Quelles sont les spécificités de l'Afrique sahélienne qui obligent à renouveler les approches géographiques de l'espace marchand? Quels sont les facteurs déterminants de l'activité économique frontalière? Les formes d'organisation de l'espace qui concourent à la structuration de l'économie sont-elles concurrentes ou coopératives? Les logiques économiques frontalières sont-elles compatibles avec l'orientation des programmes de développement adoptés par les pays sahéliens et leurs partenaires bi- ou multilatéraux? Dans une première partie, un modèle territorial de l'Afrique sahélienne permet de rendre compte de la prédominance des logiques circulatoires sur les logiques productives, une propriété essentielle de toute organisation économique confrontée à l'instabilité climatique. Dans une seconde partie, l'étude considère les facteurs déterminants de l'activité économique frontalière que sont le degré d'enclavement des territoires, la libre circulation des biens et des personnes, les relations concurrentielles ou coopératives qui lient les marchés ainsi que les liens clientélistes qui unissent patron et obligés. Une troisième partie est consacrée aux productions agricoles de tente organisées sous forme de coopératives paysannes ou d'initiatives privées. Une quatrième partie s'intéresse aux réseaux de l'import-export et du commerce de détail qui bénéficient de l'augmentation des besoins engendrée par l'urbanisation sahélienne. L'économie spatiale qui résulte de ces flux est organisée selon deux logiques distinctes : d'une part, les opportunités relatives à la production agricole conduisent certains investisseurs à intensifier l'irrigation pour satisfaire la demande des marchés urbains, d'autre part, les acteurs du capitalisme marchand, actifs dans l'import-export et la vente de détail, développent des réseaux informels et mobiles qui se jouent des différentiels nationaux. Les activités commerciales des villes-marchés connaissent alors des fluctuations liées aux entreprises productives et circulatoires de ces patrons, lesquelles concourent à l'organisation territoriale générale de l>Afrique sahélienne. Ces logiques évoluent dans un contexte fortement marqué par les politiques des institutions financières internationales, des agences bilatérales de coopération et des ONGs. Celles-ci se donnent pour ambition de transformer les économies, les systèmes politiques et les organisations sociales sahéliennes, en faisant la promotion du libéralisme, de la bonne gouvernance et de la société civile. Ces axes directeurs, qui constituent le champ de bataille contemporain du développement, forment un ensemble dans lequel la spécificité sahélienne notamment frontalière est rarement prise en compte. C'est pourquoi l'étude conclut en faveur d'un renouvellement des politiques de développement appliquées aux espaces frontaliers. Trois grands axes d'intervention peuvent alors être dégagés, lesquels permettent de réconcilier des acteurs et des logiques longtemps dissociés: ceux des espaces séparés par une limite administrative, ceux de la sphère urbaine et rurale et ceux du capitalisme marchand et de l'investissement agricole, en renforçant la coopération économique transfrontalière, en prenant en considération les interactions croissantes entre villes et campagnes et en appuyant les activités marchandes. Abstract: Urbanisation in West Africa is recent and fast. If only 10 % of the total population was living in urban areas in 1950, this proportion reached 40 % in 2000 and will be estimated to 60 % in 2025. Small and intermediate cities, located between the countryside and large metropolis, are particularly concerned with this process. They are nowadays considered as efficient vectors of local economic development because of fiscal or monetary disparities between states, which enable businessmen to develop particular skills based on local urban networks. The majority of theses networks are informal and extremely flexible, like in the Gaya - Malanville - Kamba region, located between Niger, Benin and Nigeria. Evidence show that this economic space is characterised by high potentialities (climatic and hydrological conditions, location on main economic West African axis) and few constraints (remoteness of some potentially high productive areas). In this context, this PhD deals with the economic relationships between the three market cities. Focusing on the links that unite the businessmen of the local markets - called patron; - it reveals the extreme flexibility of their strategies as well as the deeply informal nature of their activities. Through the analysis of examples taken from the commerce of agricultural products, import and export flows and detail activities, it studies the changes that have taken place in the city centres of Gaya, Malanville and Kamba. Meanwhile, this research shows how these cities represent a border economical area based on rival and complementary connections. In the first Part, it was necessary to reconsider the usual spatial analysis devoted to the question of economic centrality. As a matter of fact, the organisation of West African economic spaces is very flexible and mobile. Centrality is always precarious because of seasonal or temporary reasons. This is why the first chapters are devoted to the study of the specificity of the Sahelian territoriality. Two main elements are relevant: first the population diversity and second, the urban-rural linkages. In the second part, the study considers three main factors on which the cross-border economic networks are dependent: enclosure that prevents goods to reach the markets, administrative constraints that limit free trade between states and cities and the concurrent or complementary relationships between markets. A third part deals with the clientelist ties engaged between the patrons and their clients with the hypothesis that these relationships are based on reciprocity and inequality. A fourth part is devoted to' the study of the spatial organisation of commercial goods across the borders, as far as the agriculture commercial products, the import-export merchandises and the retail products are concerned. This leads to the conclusion that the economic activity is directly linked to urban growth. However, the study notices that there is a lack of efficient policies dealing with strengthening the business sector and improving the cross-border cooperation. This particularity allows us to favour new local development approaches, which would take into account the important potential of private economical actors. In the same time, the commercial flows should be regulated with the help of public policies, as long as they are specifically adapted to the problems that these areas have to deal with.