The Home Chez Nous as a Model for Child Care

Abstract

Created in 1919, the Home Chez Nous began as a small institution in the Swiss canton of Vaud that provided care for young children who had been removed from their family homes by the canton’s child protection agency. It was directed by three women who chose to devote themselves entirely to this educational mission and whose work was greatly influenced by the Progressive Education movement, thanks to their own education at the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute in Geneva. The involvement of Adolphe Ferrière in the Home Chez Nous as of 1929 contributed to the international renown of the institution, as Ferrière would present it as a model of an «Active School» through his countless writings and the distribution of a film on the Home Chez Nous itself. Such promotion was nevertheless based on fiction insofar as there was a considerable difference between the reality of this institution and Ferrière’s writings on the subject. This begs the question as to the modes of production of educational models. Could they be anything other than a rhetorical construction to the service of a cause?

KEY WORDS: Active school, Adolphe Ferrière, International League for New Education, children’s home, film on education.