The reasons of social marginality and educational differences. Pedagogical repercussions of the scientific debate concerning the wild child of Aveyron

Abstract

This article seeks to demonstrate the influence of the etiological discourse, of late iluminist and positivist origin, in contemporary education, particularly in ideas about difference and marginality in the area of education. For this we take as a point of departure the Mémoire of Jean Itard concerning the education of Victor de l’Aveyron, and the scientific and political debates that were produced around this case at the beginnings of the 19th century. The construction of the concept of marginality is studied as the absence of meaning in a world conceived of from a center for the production of «sense», beyond which subjects lose their condition of meaningfulness and their educability. Finally, this paper explores the consequences of this discourse for present-day pedagogical theory. Especially analyzed are the interesting processes of apprenticeship that are produced around the edges of the official scholastic system, and which constitute educational forms quite different from conventional ones, but of extraordinary interest and value nonetheless.