France has a highly organized educational system, which is divided into primary, secondary and tertiary (college) education. Primary and secondary education is usually imparted at public schools although a strong network of private schools also exists. All educational programs in France are regulated by the Ministry of National Education.
Schooling in France is mandatory as of age 6, the first year of primary school while secondary education consists of collège for the first four years after primary school and the lycée for the next three years. The baccalauréat is the end-of-lycée diploma that students must attain and is comparable to British A-Levels and American SATs. Students have a choice of sitting for the baccalauréat général
At that time, the middle school became the intermediate cycle where pupils had to make their own personal plan for school, and technology education was responsible for indicating possible career choices. On the other hand, general goals were broken down into concepts and skills. This second element of the curriculum described the organization of concepts based on four domains of reference: mechanical construction, electrical construction, and economics management and computer science. Clearly, the chosen references oriented technology education in
Jacques Ginestié Analyzing Technology Education the world of industry towards electro-mechanical production, to the exclusion of other possibilities (Ginestié, 2001b).
The main problem in introducing the TE curriculum has been to link the general aims to the specific fields (Sanders, 1999; Ginestié, 2004). These difficulties appeared with in-service teacher training programs. Earlier, the French Ministry of Education strongly affirmed the principle that TE was not a compendium of a little mechanics, a little electronics, and a business management with different aspects of computer science as a binder. To link these subjects together, teachers have had to connect general aims and specific concepts into an overall pedagogical project (Ginestié,
2005). Many in-service teacher training programs develop this orientation rather than aiming simply for the acquisition of specific knowledge. The