A l’heure où d’aucuns déplorent la perte d’autorité à l’école, l’évocation d’un âge d’or de l’autorité des professeurs est récurrente. Tout se passe comme si cette autorité avait été évidente jusqu’à la fin du XIXe siècle au point de n’avoir jamais eu à être légitimée pour exister. C’est à ce mythe que s’intéresse cette thèse. Aborder pareille question justifiait un effort de compréhension pour un passé qui, bien qu’il ne nous concerne plus, n’en reste pas moins la base sur laquelle, ou contre laquelle, le présent s’est construit. En d’autres termes, il s’agissait de remonter aux sources de l’autorité pouvant être invoquées comme éléments de légitimation. C’est pourquoi la période étudiée est une « longue durée » s’étendant de l’Antiquité jusqu’à l’aube de la IIIe République.Répondant à la question de recherche : « Sur quelles raisons s’est étayée la légitimité de l’autorité des maîtres et sur quels moyens externes cette autorité s’est-elle appuyée ? », cette thèse démontre que l’autorité des maîtres d’école primaire a, au contraire de ce qui est souvent affirmé, nécessité, de tous temps, des discours de légitimation de la part des théoriciens de l’éducation qu’ils soient religieux, philosophes ou politiques. En effet, en s’appuyant sur une typologie des formes de légitimation de l’autorité, inspirée de celle qui avait été établie par Max Weber, elle met non seulement en évidence des éléments de légitimation de l’autorité pédagogique propres à certaines périodes historiques mais elle fait également la lumière sur l’existence de trois invariants de cette légitimation : le patriarcalisme, le charisme de fonction et la codification morale. / At a time when some people lament the loss of authority in schools, the evocation of a golden age of teachers’ authority is recurrent. Everything happens as though this authority had been obvious up to the end of the 19th century so much so that it never had to be legitimated in order to exist. This doctoral thesis focuses on this myth. Tackling such a question justified an effort of comprehension for a past that, although it doesn’t concern us anymore, remains the basis on which or against which the present was built. In other words, it was a matter of returning to the sources of authority that could be put forward as the elements for legitimization. That’s why the studied period is a “long-spanning period” spreading from the Antiquity to the dawn of the 3rd Republic. Answering to the research question: “On what grounds did the legitimacy of the teachers’ authority rest and on what external means did it rely?”, this doctoral thesis demonstrates that, unlike what is often said, the authority of primary school teachers has required speeches of legitimization from the theoreticians of education whether they were religious, philosophical or political. Indeed, relying on the forms of legitimized authority, inspired by the one that was established by Max Weber, this thesis not only reveals the elements of legitimization that are characteristic of historical periods but it also enlightens the existence of three constancies for this legitimization: patriarchalism, charisma of the profession and moral codification.

The thesis is focused on collaboration, cooperativeness, and mutual communication of teachers that represents one of the key pillars of the successful process of education. The cooperation of teachers is very important in the new conception of the school education program as well as in fulfilling cross-sectional topics and interdisciplinary relationships. The theoretical part describes basic terms, teacher's personality, his (her) roles and profession competencies, authorities and reputation of the teacher. The theoretical part also features information regarding collaboration of teachers in general, typical forms of the collaboration, deals with the role of school in teachers' collaboration. The aim of the empirical part is to map a topic of collaboration and cooperativeness among high school teachers. An additional aim is to analyze whether the cooperativeness and collaboration represents a benefit for high school teachers, and, eventually what might hinder such collaboration. Key words: teacher, collaboration, cooperativeness, teacher's personality, teacher's authority, teacher's competence

This diploma thesis is concerned with the perception of the teacher's authority by pupils of the 6th and 9th grades of a grammar school. The main aim of the thesis is to compare the perception of the teacher's authority by students of the above mentioned age groups from different perspectives. These aspects include ontogenetic stages of their development, the gender and the milieu. They are one of the topics that will be paid attention to in the theoretical part of the thesis. Another theme of the work includes the concept of authority and the authority of the teacher. The research is based od a quantitative survey, carried out through a questionnaire created for research purposes. The task of the questionnaire is to find out whether the perception of the teacher's authority changes depending on the age of the pupils, which means a specific stage of ontogenetic development, and how the above mentioned points affect the perception of teacher's authority by pupils of 6th and 9th grades. In order to confirm or specify the obtained questionnaire data or add information to them, a semi-structured interview was conducted with selected teachers. The interview was attended by five respondents, two men and three women of various age, with different length of work experience at various schools. The aim of...