The self, the self-concept and identity are contested areas in various domains of enquiry. In cognitive psychology, the self is seen as a powerful explanatory construct. Indeed, in the education context, self-concept has been associated with achievement and motivation, though sociocultural approaches have highlighted the failure of certain schools of thought to take account of contextual and relational self processes. Nonetheless, despite the importance of the concept of self for learning, it has only fairly recently become of significant interest in the field of second or foreign language learning (L2). This longitudinal study focuses on the nature of, and changes in, students’ L2 reading self-concepts. In order to navigate the complexity of the theoretical issues surrounding the self construct, the approach of Rom Harré (1998) was adopted in which the self is seen as a frame for the discourse of personal attributes, reflexive self-beliefs and action. This perspective underpinned a mixed methods approach to enquiry with a group of international students taking a nine-month business pre-masters pathway programme. Based on the work of Pollard and Filer (1996), a framework for the narrative description of L2 reading self-concept was devised which provided a broad account of self-views of L2 reading, showing how these are linked in important ways to personal histories and the situational context. It was found that perception of competence was the main area of L2 reading self-concept change. Findings also included the importance of competence perceptions and the role of language knowledge in distinguishing L2 reading self-views. It is hoped that the model of L2 reading self-concept developed will enhance understanding of students’ experience of reading and learning through a second or foreign language. This should enable educators to support students more effectively, especially in international education contexts in which students study through another language. Areas for further research into L2 reading self-views in this type of context are suggested.

This thesis looks at the understanding of Chinese and Western cultures within the academic working environment of internationalised higher education, and the influence on their working relationships. This research takes an interpretivist, qualitative approach. It is based on four different organisational contexts of internationalised higher education in Mainland China, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. The four organisational contexts include a Chinese case, a Collaborative case, a Colonialism case and a British case. Qualitative interview data were collected from seventy Chinese and Western academic staff. The research examines academic staff s interpretation of Western (Hofstede s cultural dimensions) and Chinese cultural values (Guanxi, Mianzi and Harmony). The key findings are Guanxi, Mianzi and Harmony are closely related to Hofstede s cultural dimensions. Particularly, with the support of the Chinese Yin-Yang theory, it demonstrates that Hofstede s bipolar cultural dimensions are not sufficient to explain the Chinese culture. The findings also show that Western expatriate academics have stronger cultural sensitivity than the Chinese indigenous academics. Furthermore, the findings show that the organisational context has a stronger impact than the national one on employees cultural understanding and working relationships. Based on the findings, practical implications are discussed as well as limitations and recommendations for future research.

The purpose of this study is twofold: to assess the relationships among factors negatively affecting communication process in Turkish state universities and to test a hypothetical model drawn from a qualitative case study done by Gizir (1999). The sample of the study consisted of 480 faculty members employed in seven public universities representing seven regions of Turkey. As an instrument, &ldquo / Inventory of Communication Analysis in Academic Context&rdquo / , which was developed by the researcher by using the qualitative data obtained from a study done by Gizir (1999), was used in the present study. Structural equation modelling was used to analyze the data. The results of the present study revealed that there were direct and indirect relationships between each of the nine factors and poor communication, and among nine factors. The results also showed that there were some similarities and differences between the hypothetical model and the modified model.

Submitted by Cássia Santos (cassia.bcufg@gmail.com) on 2016-09-12T10:36:52Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Maria José Martins Capuzzo - 2016.pdf: 1366559 bytes, checksum: 828d007a7de1167d23ad1bcae0b1a6fb (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2016-09-12T14:24:50Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Maria José Martins Capuzzo - 2016.pdf: 1366559 bytes, checksum: 828d007a7de1167d23ad1bcae0b1a6fb (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-12T14:24:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Maria José Martins Capuzzo - 2016.pdf: 1366559 bytes, checksum: 828d007a7de1167d23ad1bcae0b1a6fb (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-04-28 / This research has as study object the Music Course - Graduate School of Music and Performing Arts (EMAC) of the Federal University of Goiás (UFG). The objectives are researches: a) Investigate the profile of the academic music course - Bachelor of EMAC / UFG; b) Analyze the commitment and performance of students in order to understand the reasons that lead to dropping out of the course; c) To analyze how the Educational Project Course meets the expectations and professional needs of its students and to what extent can influence the withdrawal of the course; d) Explain the process of permanent, temporary or permanent withdrawal of academics in these courses. It is important to consider some factors that may influence the relationship between the academic and the course, as the reconciliation of work and study, the interference of the family and society in the dropout process, as well as the expectations and professional needs of these students on the Educational Project. The methodology used in this research is based on qualitative and quantitative paradigm, whose procedures for data collection made real through: a) Documentary research and field research with questionnaires and interviews. The results indicate that the university has contributed, in part, so that they achieve their goals for the courses. Most students made suggestions to contribute positively to the success of the Degree in Music Course. Expected to reignite debate about the applicant's evasion problem in higher music course in Brazil, more specifically, about the degrees in music, including the interrelationships between student, Higher Education Institution (HEI) and society. / A presente pesquisa tem como objeto de estudo o Curso de Música - Licenciatura da Escola de Música e Artes Cênicas (EMAC) da Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG). Constituem-se objetivos desta pesquisa: a) Investigar o perfil do acadêmico do Curso de Música – Licenciatura da EMAC/UFG; b) Analisar o compromisso e desempenho dos discentes no sentido de compreender os motivos que levam à desistência do curso; c) Analisar como o Projeto Pedagógico dos Cursos atende às expectativas e necessidades profissionais dos seus alunos e até que ponto pode influenciar na desistência do curso; d) Explicar o processo de permanência, interrupção temporária ou definitiva dos acadêmicos nos referidos cursos. É importante considerar alguns fatores que podem influenciar na relação entre o acadêmico e o curso, como a conciliação entre estudo e trabalho, a interferência da família e sociedade no processo de evasão, assim como as expectativas e necessidades profissionais desses alunos diante do Projeto Pedagógico. A metodologia utilizada nesta pesquisa está baseada no paradigma quali-quantitativo, cujos procedimentos para a coleta de dados se deram por meio de: a) Pesquisa documental e pesquisa de campo com aplicação de questionários e entrevistas. Os resultados indicam que a universidade tem contribuído, parcialmente, para que eles atinjam seus objetivos em relação aos cursos. A maioria dos alunos fez sugestões no sentido de contribuírem positivamente para o sucesso do Curso de Licenciatura em Música. Espera-se reascender debates sobre o problema recorrente da evasão no curso superior de música no Brasil, mais especificamente, sobre as licenciaturas em música, incluindo as inter-relações entre aluno, Instituição de Ensino Superior (IES) e sociedade.

L'objet de ce travail de thèse est l'exploration des facteurs qui influencent la réussite académique des étudiants (n= 1447) dans les Instituts Universitaires de Technologie (IUT) tout au long des deux années que dure la préparation du diplôme universitaire de technologie (DUT). La réussite dans l'enseignement supérieur en France semble très liée au baccalauréat obtenu et à son niveau deréussite (Duru-Bellat & Kieffer, 2008), les IUT présentent de ce point de vue une double singularité intéressante pour explorer cette question. Comparés aux autres filières de l'Université française, les bacheliers technologiques y sont proportionnellement plus nombreux et y réussissent mieux. Ces instituts sont en cela fidèles à leur rôle institutionnel. Néanmoins, la proportion des bachelierstechnologiques décroît sur le long terme et ils y réussissent moins bien que leurs homologues des baccalauréats généraux.Cette exploration des facteurs de réussite passe par une modélisation statistique de la moyenne de fin de semestre, à la fois intégrative et longitudinale. L'objectif est alors de discerner les facteurs ayant le plus d'influence sur la performance et la progression durant un semestre. Le cadre théorique retenu contient quatre familles de variables. La première rassemble les caractéristiques personnelles des individus lors de leur entrée à l'IUT, la deuxième porte sur leur perception du contexte académique, la troisième et la quatrième sont respectivement constituées de leur motivation et de leur engagement dans l'apprentissage. Ces familles de variables sont introduites par bloc pour la première année suivant un schéma global préétabli.Cette spécification a mis en évidence l'importance du passé scolaire parmi les caractéristiques personnelles en début d'IUT. Dans le contexte académique, l'implication enseignante perçue est la variable la plus influente. Pour la motivation, le Sentiment d'Efficacité Personnel possèdel'influence la plus marquée. Enfin, les dimensions cognitives et comportementales de l'engagement ont émergé avec l'apprentissage en surface et la régulation des ressources disponibles respectivement. Exception faite de l'implication enseignante, les dimensions psychosociales perdent de leur influence au fur et à mesure que le temps passe, phénomène assimilable à une élasticité décroissante de la moyenne avec le temps. Enfin, le constat le plus massif est l'effet des variables du passé scolaire, notamment le type de baccalauréat et la mention. Ces variables ne sont quasiment pas médiatisées par les autres variables sauf s'il s'agit d'indicateurs de la performance académique comme la moyenne d'un semestre par exemple. L'écart en fin de première année entre bacheliers technologiques et scientifiques est très important, il équivaut à environ deux niveaux de mention au baccalauréat. De plus, la progression des bacheliers technologiques s'avère plus difficile que celle des scientifiques au second semestre et l'écart entre ces types de bacheliers tend à diminuer en fin de deuxième année. Même si un surcroît de motivation, une meilleure orientation de l'engagement sont des leviers pour favoriser la réussite des bacheliers technologiques, la grandeur des effets attendus ne permet pas de penser qu'il s'agit de solutions suffisantes pour combler le fossé observé. Cette explication des différences par l'amont, bien que convaincante, n'est toutefois pas suffisante pour expliquer les observations conditionnées aux différents cursus : il semble bien exister des établissements ou des cursus plus ou moins favorables aux bacheliers technologiques. / This thesis aims to explore factors influencing students' (n=1447) academic achievement in the technological stream of French university (IUT) during the two years preparation of their technological university degree. French students' achievement seems to be strongly tied with thetype of their high school diploma (technological vs scientific) (Duru-Bellat & Kieffer, 2008), the IUTs present two interesting singularities to examine this question. Compared to Students from other French university streams, IUTs' students with technological background are proportionally more numerous and obtain better results. IUTs are thus assumed their institutional role. Nevertheless, proportions of students with technological background decrease from year to year and these students are less successful than the scientific ones. The exploration of factors influencing achievement goes through a statistic model of average of bi-annual grades. The aim is to discern the most significant factors affecting results and progression during academic terms. To this end, the framework contains four families of variables. The first onebrings together student personal background information when they enter the IUT. The second one is about the students' perception of academic context. The third and the fourth families are respectively motivation and engagement in learning. These families of variables are graduallyintroduced according to a predetermined pattern. This specification highlights the predominance of academic past among personal background. It reveals that perceived involvement of teachers is the most influential variable in the perception of academic context. Self-Efficacy has the most remarkable influence on progress and academic results. The cognitive and behavioral dimensions of engagement have finally arisen with surface approach of learning, and regulation of available resources respectively. Except for the perceived involvement of teachers, all the psychosocial factors impact less academic terms' averages asstudents continue their studies . This phenomenon can be compared to a decrease of elasticity of average over time. Finally, to notice that despite the introduction of those psychosocial variables, the past academic story remains the strongest and the most significant predictor of academic termsaverages. The academic past is barely mediated by variables introduced in the model, except if these variables are academic performance indicators like intermediate academic terms averages. The gap between students with technological high school diploma and students with scientific one, in termof average at the end of the first year, can be considered as being very large. This gap can be indeed estimated as a high school diploma with distinction or one with merit only. Furthermore, it's more difficult to improve for technological high school graduates than for the scientific ones during thefirst year. Nevertheless, the difference in terms of averages between technological and scientific high school graduates tends to decrease after two years. A better motivation and an increased engagement are positive means to foster the tech high school graduates’ achievement but the importance of the expected effects is too small to think it could be enough to fill the gap. Although this explanation of differences of academic terms averages and of academic progress by the past academic story is convincing, it is not enough to explain the observations depending on the different curricula. These observations show that the domain or curriculum has an impact on the success ofthe technological high school graduate.

Students who are truant from school may result in their becoming academically and socially unprepared to enter the work force. In an age in which higher paying jobs require technical skills from workers, employees with minimal skills and academic preparation have a negative social and fiscal impact upon the school community and the larger social order of the country. The purpose of this study examines the problem through personal, in-depth interviews of students identified as truants in order to provide a deeper understanding of the phenomena and the critical effects upon their academic and social development. Eight individual students are interviewed, examining their lived experiences as it relates to their education through a collective case study methodology. The reconstruction of these students' reflections on life events provides a subjective analysis of their school attendance, with implications for educators to begin prevention and intervention strategies prior the onset of the middle school experience.

Cette thèse a pour objectif d’étudier trois pratiques distinctes d’évaluation en Français langue étrangère dans le contexte universitaire chinois, afin de proposer des orientations pour remédier aux difficultés d’apprentissage. Elle s’inscrit selon une double dynamique, d’un côté elle tente de situer l’enseignement, l’apprentissage et l’évaluation du français dans son environnement culturel, éducatif, institutionnel et méthodologique ; d’un autre côté, elle cherche à évaluer la compétence à communiquer à l’écrit dans des textes d’apprenants chinois.La démarche adoptée est à la fois empirique et interventionniste. Le modèle empirique de l’évaluation prend pour base l’université chinoise où s’inscrit le trajet de l’évaluation avec ses acteurs et ses actes, et qui s’articule avec deux autres niveaux, les épreuves nationales de français en Chine, et les épreuves internationales dans les projets de mobilité. La réflexion développée s’adosse à un corpus de productions écrites d’étudiants chinois en deuxième année à l’université. L’analyse et l’évaluation de ces productions permettent de cerner deux difficultés majeures, l’une liée au processus rédactionnel en langue étrangère, l’autre au caractère subjectif de l’évaluation d’un texte. L’articulation entre les niveaux universitaire, national et international implique une démarche interventionniste, le but est de proposer des pistes à aider les étudiants à améliorer leur compétence écrite afin de réussir leur évaluation à l’université, comme aux niveaux national et international. La recherche s’intéresse au processus rédactionnel dans sa globalité, elle montre qu’il est nécessaire de mettre en évidence les difficultés des scripteurs au cours de la rédaction en langue seconde. Elle s’appuie sur les notions d’évaluation, de compétence à communiquer à l’écrit, ainsi que des procédés de cohérence, cohésion et connexion. Des outils d’analyse hétérogènes sont mis en place à partir des théories de l’argumentation pour étudier la dimension interculturelle de la recherche. Ce volet implique des valeurs, des croyances et des attitudes qui ne sont pas évaluables dans les textes des étudiants, mais qui se situent au cœur même de la réflexion didactique de l’enseignement et l’apprentissage d’une langue étrangère. / This research has for objective to study three different practices of evaluation in French as a foreign language in the Chinese university context, to propose orientations to remedy the difficulties of learning. It joins according to a double dynamics, on one side it tries to place the teaching, the learning and the evaluation of French in its cultural, educational, institutional and methodological environment; on other side, it tries to estimate the skill to writing by Chinese learners.The adopted approach is at the same time empirical and interventionist. The empirical model of the evaluation takes for basis the Chinese university. The evaluation takes place with its actors and its actions; it is also structured with two other levels, the national examinations of French in China, and the international examinations that students take for their mobility projects. Developed reflection is based on a corpus of written productions by Chinese students in second year at the university in China. The analysis and evaluation of these productions makes it possible to identify two major difficulties, one related to the written process in the foreign language, the other to the subjective characters involved in the evaluation of a text. The articulation between university, national and international levels implies an interventionist approach, as the aim is to propose paths that can help students to improve their written skills in order to pass their assessment not only at university, but also at national and international level.The research is concerned with the written process in its entirety, it shows that it is necessary to highlight the difficulties of scriptors in second-language writing. It is based on the concepts of evaluation and written communication skills, and on the concepts of coherence, cohesion and connection. In addition, heterogeneous analytical tools are developed from the theories of argumentation to study the intercultural dimension of research. This component implies values, beliefs and attitudes that are not evaluable in the student’s texts but are at the heart of even didactic reflection of teaching and learning a foreign language.

La recherche explore le rapport à l’école et aux savoirs scolaires de jeunes d’origine haïtienne en contexte scolaire défavorisé. Considérant des trajectoires contrastées d’élèves en réussite scolaire, d’élèves vulnérables et de jeunes décrocheurs, elle examine les processus qui concourent à la réussite socioscolaire des uns et à la moindre réussite des autres en interrogeant le sens que les jeunes accordent à l’école et à l’acte d’apprendre. La recherche documente par ailleurs la manière dont ce sens s’est construit dans la trajectoire socioscolaire depuis la maternelle. Cette approche basée sur des entretiens approfondis à caractère biographique permet d'avoir des hypothèses explicatives sur un résiduel non expliqué par les recherches quantitatives. Elle bonifie aussi la perspective de Charlot (2001) jugée trop centrée sur l'élève (Thésée, 2003). L’élève est au centre de la démarche, mais son rapport aux savoirs scolaires est analysé à travers l’exploration de la trajectoire de socialisation scolaire, familiale et communautaire et en croisant les regards des jeunes, des parents, enseignants et autres personnes significatives sur cette trajectoire. Selon les résultats de notre recherche, le rapport à l’école et aux savoirs scolaires semble plus complexe et critique chez les élèves en réussite qui identifient la valeur formative, qualifiante et socialisante de l’école. Ces derniers se mobilisent fortement dans leur apprentissage. En comparaison, les élèves en difficulté mettent plutôt l’accent sur la socialisation et la qualification et ils font preuve d’une moindre mobilisation scolaire. Certains d’entre eux se rapprochent des jeunes décrocheurs avec un rapport aux savoirs de non-sens et de désengagement. Mais au-delà de ces grandes lignes, le rapport à l’école et aux savoirs scolaires se décline différemment d’un jeune à l’autre, suivant des caractéristiques personnelles, familiales et sociales spécifiques et suivant le savoir/apprentissage scolaire considéré et son mode de transmission par l’enseignant. Les résultats de la recherche mettent en évidence le rôle d’acteur de l’élève dans son apprentissage, mais aussi celui des principaux contextes dans lesquels il évolue. L’école est particulièrement interpellée. Les élèves dénoncent la forme scolaire scripturale, perçue monotone lourde et rigide, et certaines pratiques enseignantes qui ne favorisent pas l’apprentissage (Fabre, 2007 ; Pépin, 1994). Les familles sont aussi interpellées quant à leurs valeurs, pratiques et cohésion. Enfin, la recherche souligne l’influence du réseau des pairs et des milieux communautaires. Apprendre et réussir à l’école se révèlent un enjeu individuel et social qui implique une mobilisation collective. / The research explores the relationship with school and with scholastic knowledge of young native Haitians in disadvantage academic context. Considering some contrasting trajectories of students academically successful, vulnerable students, and students who dropout, it examines the processes that contribute to socio-academic achievement among the first group and to less successful outcomes among the latter two groups by exploring the meaning that these youths attach to school and to the act of learning. The research also documents the way this meaning is constructed in the youths’ socio-academic pathways. This approach, based on in-depth biographical interviews, generated explanatory hypotheses regarding a residual variance that remained unexplained by quantitative studies. It also enhances Charlot’s perspective (2001), which has been considered overly student-centred (Thésée, 2003). While the student is at the centre of this approach, his/her relationship with academic knowledge is analyzed by exploring the pathway of academic, family and community-based socialization. It examines these in terms of the perspective of the youths themselves as well as that of parents, teachers and other significant people involved in this trajectory. The results indicate that these youths’ relationship with school and with academic knowledge appears to be more complex and more critical among students who succeed academically and who recognize the value of school for developing skills, acquiring qualifications and socializing. These students actively engage in their learning. In contrast, students who experience difficulties put greater emphasis on socialization and qualifications and put less effort into their schooling. Their relationship with academic knowledge, similarly to that of youths who drop out of school, is sometimes characterized by a lack of meaning and disengagement. However, beyond these broader tendencies, the youths’ relationship with school and with academic knowledge plays out differently for each youth depending on specific personal, family and social characteristics, the academic knowledge considered, and the way teachers transmit this knowledge. Lastly, the results highlights the student’s role as an actor in this process, as well as the active role played by the main environments in which the student moves. The school is particularly challenged. Students denounce the scriptural scholastic form, perceived monotonous, heavy and rigid. Besides, according to them, some teaching practices do not promote learning (Fabre, 2007; Pépin, 1994). The research also highlights the importance of values, practices and cohesion, of the family. Finally, the research emphasizes the influence of the network of peers and community settings. Learning and succeeding in school emerge as an individual and social challenge that involves collective mobilization.

La recherche explore le rapport à l’école et aux savoirs scolaires de jeunes d’origine haïtienne en contexte scolaire défavorisé. Considérant des trajectoires contrastées d’élèves en réussite scolaire, d’élèves vulnérables et de jeunes décrocheurs, elle examine les processus qui concourent à la réussite socioscolaire des uns et à la moindre réussite des autres en interrogeant le sens que les jeunes accordent à l’école et à l’acte d’apprendre. La recherche documente par ailleurs la manière dont ce sens s’est construit dans la trajectoire socioscolaire depuis la maternelle. Cette approche basée sur des entretiens approfondis à caractère biographique permet d'avoir des hypothèses explicatives sur un résiduel non expliqué par les recherches quantitatives. Elle bonifie aussi la perspective de Charlot (2001) jugée trop centrée sur l'élève (Thésée, 2003). L’élève est au centre de la démarche, mais son rapport aux savoirs scolaires est analysé à travers l’exploration de la trajectoire de socialisation scolaire, familiale et communautaire et en croisant les regards des jeunes, des parents, enseignants et autres personnes significatives sur cette trajectoire. Selon les résultats de notre recherche, le rapport à l’école et aux savoirs scolaires semble plus complexe et critique chez les élèves en réussite qui identifient la valeur formative, qualifiante et socialisante de l’école. Ces derniers se mobilisent fortement dans leur apprentissage. En comparaison, les élèves en difficulté mettent plutôt l’accent sur la socialisation et la qualification et ils font preuve d’une moindre mobilisation scolaire. Certains d’entre eux se rapprochent des jeunes décrocheurs avec un rapport aux savoirs de non-sens et de désengagement. Mais au-delà de ces grandes lignes, le rapport à l’école et aux savoirs scolaires se décline différemment d’un jeune à l’autre, suivant des caractéristiques personnelles, familiales et sociales spécifiques et suivant le savoir/apprentissage scolaire considéré et son mode de transmission par l’enseignant. Les résultats de la recherche mettent en évidence le rôle d’acteur de l’élève dans son apprentissage, mais aussi celui des principaux contextes dans lesquels il évolue. L’école est particulièrement interpellée. Les élèves dénoncent la forme scolaire scripturale, perçue monotone lourde et rigide, et certaines pratiques enseignantes qui ne favorisent pas l’apprentissage (Fabre, 2007 ; Pépin, 1994). Les familles sont aussi interpellées quant à leurs valeurs, pratiques et cohésion. Enfin, la recherche souligne l’influence du réseau des pairs et des milieux communautaires. Apprendre et réussir à l’école se révèlent un enjeu individuel et social qui implique une mobilisation collective. / The research explores the relationship with school and with scholastic knowledge of young native Haitians in disadvantage academic context. Considering some contrasting trajectories of students academically successful, vulnerable students, and students who dropout, it examines the processes that contribute to socio-academic achievement among the first group and to less successful outcomes among the latter two groups by exploring the meaning that these youths attach to school and to the act of learning. The research also documents the way this meaning is constructed in the youths’ socio-academic pathways. This approach, based on in-depth biographical interviews, generated explanatory hypotheses regarding a residual variance that remained unexplained by quantitative studies. It also enhances Charlot’s perspective (2001), which has been considered overly student-centred (Thésée, 2003). While the student is at the centre of this approach, his/her relationship with academic knowledge is analyzed by exploring the pathway of academic, family and community-based socialization. It examines these in terms of the perspective of the youths themselves as well as that of parents, teachers and other significant people involved in this trajectory. The results indicate that these youths’ relationship with school and with academic knowledge appears to be more complex and more critical among students who succeed academically and who recognize the value of school for developing skills, acquiring qualifications and socializing. These students actively engage in their learning. In contrast, students who experience difficulties put greater emphasis on socialization and qualifications and put less effort into their schooling. Their relationship with academic knowledge, similarly to that of youths who drop out of school, is sometimes characterized by a lack of meaning and disengagement. However, beyond these broader tendencies, the youths’ relationship with school and with academic knowledge plays out differently for each youth depending on specific personal, family and social characteristics, the academic knowledge considered, and the way teachers transmit this knowledge. Lastly, the results highlights the student’s role as an actor in this process, as well as the active role played by the main environments in which the student moves. The school is particularly challenged. Students denounce the scriptural scholastic form, perceived monotonous, heavy and rigid. Besides, according to them, some teaching practices do not promote learning (Fabre, 2007; Pépin, 1994). The research also highlights the importance of values, practices and cohesion, of the family. Finally, the research emphasizes the influence of the network of peers and community settings. Learning and succeeding in school emerge as an individual and social challenge that involves collective mobilization.

Cette recherche relève du domaine de la didactique du FLE et de l'usage de la communication médiée par ordinateur [CMO], plus particulièrement du clavardage, outil de communication synchrone à base textuelle. Notre recherche se place dans une perspective interactionnelle et acquisitionnelle en L2 en mettant l'accent sur la construction des discussions entre participants lors de séances de clavardage. Le public étudié est composé d'étudiants de nationalités variées en master ou doctorat dans des universités en France, et qui souhaitent améliorer la langue qu'ils doivent utiliser en milieu académique. Notre analyse du « discours-en-interaction par clavardage » a pour but d'étudier les interactions en tenant compte des spécificités de l'outil et du contexte de la discussion. En premier lieu, nous examinons la structure des énoncés en L2 au niveau de l'utilisation du lexique, des structures complexes et des marques transcodiques. En deuxième lieu, nous analysons l'utilisation des topogrammes dans un contexte académique et leurs diverses fonctions. Cette analyse montre la manière dont les apprenants se focalisent à la fois sur l'objet thématique de la discussion et sur la résolution des obstacles linguistiques ou discursifs auxquels ils sont confrontés lors des échanges. En dernier lieu, nous étudions la manière dont les apprenants construisent et co-construisent les discussions par clavardage. Les énoncés que l'apprenant construit à partir des discours de ses différents interlocuteurs lui permettent, tout en alimentant ses compétences pragmatiques, d'approfondir le sujet en discussion. Nous examinons également comment les savoirs sur les pratiques académiques naissent et se transforment au fil des interactions. Nous cherchons à montrer à la fois le bénéfice de l'utilisation du clavardage pour la recherche sur la langue d'apprenants avancés et son intérêt comme outil po! ur favoriser l'appropriation d'une L2. / This is a research in the teaching and learning of French as a foreign language and the use of CMC [computer mediated communication] using synchronous text-based CMC [computer mediated communication], viz chat. We analyze the construction of discussions between foreign students with an interactional and acquisitional perspective in order to discover its specificities. The target audience is enrolled in a French university at advanced levels [Master, Ph D…] and needs to improve their French as used in an academic context. In a « discourse analysis in chat interactions », we focus on specificities of this communication tool and of the discussion context. We first show the structure of learners' utterances, their use of lexical items and complex structures, and the influence of their other languages on their productions in French. Then, we analyze the use of « topogrammes » in an academic context and their different functions. We thus sho! w how learners focus on the thematic object of the discussion and the solving of linguistic or discourse obstacles they were faced with during the exchanges. We also study the way in which the learners construct and co-construct the discussions. The messages that they construct from their interlocutors' discourses allow them to develop the theme into a discussion and to improve his pragmatic competences. Finally, we examine how knowledge about academic practices appears and evolves during the interactions. Our work shows the benefits of the use of the chat for linguistic research about advanced learners and its interest as a communication tool in L2 acquisition.