High Certificated teacher in social sciences and Lecturer in sociology, Romuald Normand passed his Ph. D. in 2001 at the School of High Studies in Social Sciences under the mentoring of Laurent Thévenot. The thesis was named “Normal School : disciplines, pedagogies, and politics”. Involved in the renewal of  action theories, this work aimed to understand the way pedagogies had managed with proximity to provide different modes of involvement of pupils in their environment and to value different moral and political grammars. The investigation on discipline aimed also to go beyond conceptions strictly attached to rules and sanctions and to take into account alignment of children along regularities and habits diverging from a classical model of authority.

This first work has led him to investigate the place of assessment in the French republican and standardized pedagogy attached to a equality of treatment between pupils. From the coordination of works on the dissemination and the use of national assessments, he has tried to describe different teaching and assessment practices in the area of mathematics. These empirical study was conducted in parallel with another large scale investigation on the place and functions of assessment in Vocational and Educational Training Policies. To explain the transformations of assessment frameworks imposed by the European Life Long Learning Policy, Romuald Normand has searched to make evidence of a new architecture of educational systems at European level and of new modes of quality coordination emerging on decentralized territories.  His interests were then displaced to an analysis of quality management in schools, to the creation of quality networks in Higher Education, and to new quality standards in Life Long Learning Guidance.

The shifts of assessment frameworks at international level led him to analyse educational works and policies in the Anglo-Saxon context, mainly in England and USA. Were analysed the implementation of standards and accountability policies since the beginning of 80s. The investigation was continued by a historical and epistemological study on the conditions of the emergence of measurement in education within these two countries in order to specify features of French path dependency. This interrogation on the shift of assessment and statistics in public policies was enlarged to other areas (health, employment, justice, etc) through a seminar organised with Jean-Louis Derouet at the INSEE, following a call of the Ministry of Research.

This set of reflections led to the elaboration of a empirical programme 2006-2010 following a call of the French National Research Agency and named “ The policies of measurement in the knowledge society”. Other reflections are engaged with researchers belonging to the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (Philadelphia-USA) about the place of assessment in the professional development of teachers and about the conditions of evidence-based policy’s implementation. Romuald Normand is a member of the NESSE (The Network of Experts in Social Sciences for Education) core group in collaboration with the General Direction of Education and Culture (European Commission). He participates also to the works of the Redaction Committee of the journal Education & Sociétés, and he is a member of the Scientific Committee of the French Association of Administrators in Education.


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