Le mouvement paradigmatique autour du phénomène des jeunes qui vivent des difficultés: L'exemple du programme Cirque du Monde

The phenomenon of youth experiencing difficulties is an undeniable reality in the world's largest cities. It has given rise to numerous measures running the gamut from protective to repressive. This article thesis examines the phenomenon from an international and transdisciplinary viewpoint through a social action model offering circus workshops to these young people: the Cirque du Monde (CdM) program. An example of an emerging alternative current, CdM was chosen for this study because of its potential to shed light on the phenomenon of youth experiencing difficulties as well as on the paradigmatic universe that surrounds it, in an ever-changing context.

An interpretive and comprehensive single case study-type qualitative approach was used. With respect to methodology participatory and direct observations and semi-directive interviews were favoured. The work was enriched through an ongoing search of the literature on the policies of youth-oriented international organizations (IO), measures developed for youth and documents written by or about CdM. Iteratively, the approach and the analysis framework were inspired by a wide and diverse body of work. To understand CdM's approach, its individual and societal impact and its role within the paradigmatic continuum, three dimensions of the paradigm (theoretical basis, social representations and acting) were examined in the different environments (IOs and regions of the world) concerned with the phenomenon, and then within the CdM program through the Atikamekw Nation and Mexico projects, in a passage of the local to the global.

The trandisciplinary examination of these three dimensions reveals the dominance of a classical paradigm, which is widespread and, in certain circumstances, imposed. At the same time, emerging approaches advocating "another way" (an autrement) are part of a dynamic alternative current that is challenging the dominant paradigm, which shows signs of changing. The CdM program, through its two sites, reveals a message and a way of acting that stands out from classic perspectives and transcends cultural and disciplinary barriers. More holistic than fragmented, this way of acting is guided simultaneously by the individual, the social and the pedagogy of the circus. The circus model reveals itself as not only a program targeting change, but as a transformation site stricto sensu, able to reconcile, through young people, opposing ideas: marginal-normal; particular-universal, prescriptive-emancipating. From this viewpoint, CdM, in addition to being one of the expressions of an emerging alternative current, is also a part and parcel of a more general paradigmatic movement evolving around the phenomenon of youth experiencing difficulties.