Partnership trials in co-education

Since the 1980s, the territorialization of educational policies has led to the emergence of an associative market around the management of educational and youth policies. By combining the sociology of partnership public action and the sociology of associative work, and by adopting “case-based thinking”, the article sheds light on the changes in local educational policies based on associative uses, approached from the double angle of costs and (relative) profits derived from partnership involvement. Firstly, the article identifies the socio-professional and activist profiles of the associative workers involved in partnerships as well as the forms of professionalization “in small steps” and “in tension” reinforced by the rapprochement with the school and educational sphere. Secondly, the article identifies three types of “partnership trials”. It thus sheds light on the structuring recompositions of public partnership action: by discreetly encouraging the processes of subcontracting and gratuity, commodification and flexibilisation of educational work, local educational policies embrace a neo-managerial approach to handling educational problems.