Institutions scolaires et culture réunionnaise

Expérience du vieillissement et expérience médiatique : nouvelles dynamiques et fracture numérique du second degré à La Réunion

“…C'est grâce à eux que nous avons pu prendre contact avec certaines personnes âgées et, bien souvent, ils n'étaient pas bien loin lorsque leur parent ou grand-parent souhaitait faire appel à eux pour se souvenir de quelque chose. Cette relation, dans laquelle la transmission des pratiques culturelles et spirituelles est en jeu (Pourchez, 2002), semble ici résister au vieillissement des personnes âgées. En effet, non seulement les enfants hébergent leurs parents mais en plus ils s'assurent de leur prise en charge.…”

Gagging on égalité: French culinary imperialism on the island of Reunion in Axel Gauvin’s Faims d’enfance

“…Schools in particular have been implicated in this paradigm. In Reunion, the main objective of the French colonial school was to inculcate each child with the values of the Republic and give him the illusion that by leaving his origins behind, he could rise above his Creoleness (Pourchez, 2008: 96) and find himself in a position of ‘égalité devant le savoir’ (Camilleri, 1985: 15).…”

“…A native Reunionese who has spent some time in metropolitan France, she has learned to idolise metropolitan French foodways and to despise Reunionese cuisine. Her intolerance for ‘eating Creole’ mirrors the colonial school’s insistence on abandoning the Creole language, ‘synonyme de vulgarité, d’esclavage’ in favour of French, ‘la langue noble, langue de la Culture, de l’école, de l’accès à la liberté’ (Pourchez, 2008: 96). Indeed, in 1958, any student who spoke Creole in school or even made reference to Creole culture had his mouth washed out with soap (A.…”

“…The novel uses food to sketch a complex and sensitive portrait of the beginning stages of the contemporary Reunionese model for plurality of identity. It then contrasts that model with the neo-colonialism of departmentalised Reunion, where a great many of today’s schoolteachers still believe in the fundamental importance of learning French culture and see French culture as an indispensable means to educational success and social mobility (Pourchez, 2008: 104). Gauvin’s choice to end his novel on a political note is a call for recognition not only of the role that the PCR continues to play in the assertion of local Reunionese identity (G.…”