The objective of this research was to study collective activity in gymnastics workshops taught by “successful” physical education teachers in middle schools benefiting from compensatory education policies (ÉCLAIR). One of the major difficulties for teachers in these classes is to obtain sustained effort from the students. Group work is particularly unstable during lessons because the students’ individual activity is characterized by frequent disengagement, refusal to work, and continuous agitation that may take a violent turn. Certain teachers nevertheless succeed in getting their students to work in a relatively durable manner over the course of the lesson. This work thus analyzed the collective activity in classes with these teachers to identify its typical form and to understand the processes by which it was constructed. The theoretical and methodological framework for this research was the course of action, which is well suited to the study of collective activity as it specifically targets activity and the meaning it has for the actors. The case studies were conducted in middle schools in the Lille region, both part of the ÉCLAIR program, during 27 physical education classes organized as gymnastics workshops. Seven “successful” teachers and 37 students were filmed and then asked to describe their lived experiences in the classroom during self-confrontation interviews. The group activity was analyzed from two autonomous and interdependent perspectives: first, we analyzed the individual-social activity of the teachers and students by crossing the descriptive data on the behaviors observed in class with the verbatim data from the self-confrontation interviews and, second, we analyzed the configuration of the classroom activity by identifying the points of articulation between the teacher’s and students’ activity and then identifying the form of collective activity that emerged. The results showed that, despite constant agitation, the collective activity in these workshops was dominated by group work with no major disruptions in the lessons. The analysis of individual-social activity revealed two typical forms: a bipolar form organized by the "work-play" dyad for the students and by the "instruction-control" dyad for the teacher. The configuration of classroom activity also showed a form typical to classroom situations: it was based on processes of revealing and masking that made the articulation of teachers’ and students’ activities possible. The findings of this research enhance our understanding of collective activity and how it is constructed and provide greater insight into the learning practices of students from “difficult” backgrounds and the teaching practices of teachers who operate successfully in these classrooms.
