How Principles and Values Backing the Profesionnal Identity of French and Finnish Teachers Differentiate Their Ability to Face Educational Change

Abstract Forty-six interviews of French and Finnish Junior High School teachers clearly show a strong will to link professional commitment to common progressive values. However, the interviewees have to adjust these political or philosophical views when confronted with the reality of their professional everyday life and to the development of widely broadcast educational debates, like the ones about the recent reforms concerning the Junior High School level in both France and Finland, conducted at the time of the interviews (2016 and 2017). These adjustments, linked either to the circumstances or to practical realities, challenge the internal coherence of their ethical choices. This paper shows that the reference principles and the practical implications of such choices are not asserted as sharply in France as in Finland. It highlights the unequal ability of the teachers of both countries to make sense of their professional experience and to appropriate the terms of the debates on the evolution of teaching.