Tenir tête à la concurrence : les enjeux du développement de l’enseignement commercial en Suisse à la fin du XIXe siècle

The aim of this contribution is to examine the state regulation of commercial education in Switzerland at the end of the 19th century, in particular its implementation and repercussions. More fundamentally, in a Durkheimian approach to education, this article seeks to grasp the relationship between socio-political transformations and changes in the educational environment. In so doing, it aims to understand how, under conditions of federal state-building and international competition, Swiss education and public policy players (re)think the needs of students, who are also citizens and future workers, and therefore what they do or do not support as training development, in order to meet the demands of society and the job market.