This thesis examines the development of biology as an academic discipline in Manchester from the second half of the nineteenth century until the early 1960s. During the late nineteenth century, as has been well documented by a number of studies, the life sciences underwent rapid and radical change. However, as this thesis emphasises, the opening decades of the twentieth century were also crucial to the institutionalization of biology, bringing as they did the rise of applied biology and the growth of specialization. Biological departments are the locus of the discipline-building process. The changes that transformed biology over the decades in question are therefore explored as they manifested themselves in the growth and development of the Botany and Zoology departments of Manchester University. The study situates Manchester within the wider national institutional and disciplinary context and examines the influence of political and economic factors on Manchester Biology. While others have examined aspects of the history of British biology through studies of individual institutions, the present study is the first to explore the particular dynamics involved in building biology in a civic university. The study therefore brings a much needed `provincial' perspective to bear on a national picture characterized by an uneven distribution of resources. The thesis therefore has broader relevance for the question of the changing relationship between science, the universities and the state in the twentieth century. This thesis is concerned with three major currents of change that shaped the content and organization of academic biology in the period under study: the `New Biology' of the late nineteenth century, the rise of applied biology in the early twentieth century and the growth of `experimental zoology' in the interwar period. The emphasis is on research, although pedagogical change is also considered at particular points. The first shift took biology into the laboratory. The rise of applied biology led to the mobilization of state funds for biology and widened career opportunities for biologists. The third current is associated with specialization and the move beyond whole organism biology: for example, to the cellular and molecular levels.

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Cette recherche a pour objectif principal l'étude de l’impact de l'intégration d'outils informatiques et de la pédagogie par résolution de problèmes à l'enseignement de la neurophysiologie. La première partie de la thèse porte sur l'enseignement de la notion de la neurotransmission en classe de terminales Scientifiques : analyse épistémologique et historique du concept, étude des programmes et des manuels scolaires. Dans la deuxième partie, une analyse des conceptions des élèves de terminale concernant la transmission du message nerveux au niveau de la synapse a été effectuée. Dans une troisième partie des situations didactiques ont été conçues et testées : par résolution de problème et par des simulations informatisées. Les résultats de la recherche tendent à prouver que l’intégration des simulations informatisées ou la pédagogie par résolution des problèmes dans l'enseignement de la neurophysiologie augmente l’efficacité de l’enseignement du concept de la neurotransmission, et que par contre, la pédagogie par résolution de problèmes semble être une alternative plus efficace pour le changement conceptuel / This search aims to study the impact of the integration of computing tools and the pedagogy by resolution of problems in the teaching of the neurophysiology. The first part of the thesis concerns neurotransmission’s teaching in final year of secondary school: epistemological analysis, history of neurotransmission concept and analysis of the programs and the textbooks. The second part interests the pupils’ conceptions concerning the transmission of the nervous message in the synapse. In the third part didactic situations were conceived and tested: situation using PBL and simulations. The results of the search tend to prove that the integration of the simulations or the pedagogy by PBL increases the efficiency of the teaching of the concept of the neurotransmission, and that on the other hand, the pedagogy by PBL seems to be a more effective alternative

L’enseignement de l’anatomie au Gabon se calque sur un modèle culturel de type occidental. Le problème : l’approche et les perceptions culturelles du corps humain sont différentes d’un continent à l’autre. La question essentielle, de notre point de vue, est : comment concilier la manière occidentale d’approcher le corps humain et la perception du corps sans la culture bantu ? Le but de ce travail est de contribuer au développement de l’enseignement de l’anatomie à Libreville en cherchant à mieux l’intégrer dans la culture gabonaise. / The teaching of anatomy in Gabon is based on a Western cultural model. The issue is the approach and cultural perceptions of the human body differ from one continent to another. The major issue from our perspective is: how to reconcile the Western approach to the human body and the perception of the body in the Bantu culture? The goal of this work is to contribute developing the teaching of anatomy in Libreville by seeking to better integrate it in the Gabonese culture.