Co-op education in France: Between social practices and research subject

Co-op education (or sandwich courses) is a long-standing educational practice in France. Today it is present under various statuses and forms in secondary and higher education. In the education sciences, however, it became a subject of research much later on. After various narratives of militant teachers' experiences of popular or life-long education educational movements, the first works by sociologists' and educational specialists' on this topic appeared in the 1980s and 1990s. At present, the concern of education science researchers is to estimate the effects of co-op education (or sandwich courses) on the processes of professional development and identity construction of post-graduate students or vocational trainees. To illustrate our reflection, we present different case studies in the initial phase of university education and in continuous higher education training.