Professionalize, Yes, But How?
By studying the case of Sports Sciences (STAPS in French) in close proximity to the knowledge constructed and dispensed in this discipline, this article analyzes the identity tensions that the objective of professionalization of training is likely to produce in and between trainers. Our analysis is based on two series of interviews (with 54 actors teaching in Sport Sciences in total) from a longitudinal survey conducted in two phases (1997-2002; 2015-2019) and ethnographic participant observations over the whole period (1997-2019) in different university spaces of this discipline (meetings, more informal discussions, etc.). We first show that the challenge of professionalization increases intra- and inter-individual tensions considering the dynamics of specialization and increasing segmentation of trainers’ activities. We then emphasize how much this objective accentuates the debates and oppositions between “academic” and “professionalizing” visions of university training. After having highlighted the organizational, axiological and more strictly epistemic foundations of these two major conceptions, we focus on the way in which the question of the professionalization of training brings out the double constraint of validity and usefulness of knowledge and participates in a utilitarian critique of university knowledge and its modes of validation.