The Problem Continues: The 2005 Riots in Paris and Institutional Pedagogy

Abstract

In this article I describe the context of the 2005 Paris riots and show how institutional pedagogy—the ethics and praxis of considering the classroom and the students as part of a societal structure, driven by the same psycho-social desire and structures as our own societies—managed to channel some of the surrounding violence, albeit temporarily and without eradicating it. These efforts gave students access to the symbolic realm in writing and through production practices, cooperative work, group project design, and the constant questioning of power structures. I will also propose a correlation between the riots in 2005 and the events that occurred thirty-seven years earlier, during the May 1968 protests in France.