Linda Evans
email: l.evans@leeds.ac.uk

Laurent Cosnefroy

The dawn of a new professionalism in the French academy? Academics facing the challenges of change

Keywords: French higher education, Agence nationale de la recherche, initiatives d'excellence (IDEX), nouveaux étudiants, massification of higher education, pôles

Using as an analytical framework Evans's conceptualisation of professionalism, this article examines the implications for academic professionalism in the French higher education sector of reforms and significant changes that have evolved over the last few decades, including: the Investissements d'Avenir programme, the Loi de programme pour la recherche, the loi relative aux libertés et responsabilités des universités, increasing massification, and the drive to boost undergraduate student retention. Drawing upon comparative cases of parallel changes to higher education in other national contexts, and identifying changes to academic professionalism in relation to Evans's three components (behavioural, attitudinal and intellectual), and 11 dimensions, of professionalism, the authors sketch out the 'shape' and outline the nature of a new academic professionalism that they believe has been set in motion and that they envisage evolving in France.

Introduction

In late 2011 the French National Research Agency (l'Agence nationale de la recherche [ANR]) launched a funding initiative, Initiatives d'excellence en formations innovantes (IDEFI), for 'ambitious projects representing the highest standards of international excellence' designed to provide innovative, 'flagship', university-based training and teaching. The ANR evidently has high hopes that those projects selected for funding will play a key role in transforming French higher education, for it has been recognised for some time [START_REF] Calame | Le statu quo est préférable à la logique de marché[END_REF][START_REF] Evans | Sarko's shock to research: French university reform[END_REF][START_REF] Marshall | French reform plans on hold[END_REF]) that there is a need to make radical changes to the sector, and, in particular, the nature and quality of teaching in French universities [START_REF] Aschieri | Réussir la démocratisation de l'enseignement supérieur: l'enjeu du premier cycle. Avis du Conseil économique, social et environnemental[END_REF]. IDEFI forms part of a large, ambitious programme, Investments for the Future (Investissements d'Avenir). Launched by the French government in 2010 and backed by 22 billion euros earmarked for higher education, Investissements d'Avenir reflects France's aspiration to raise its profile and performance in ground-breaking research, and to increase its presence at the top end of global university ranking lists. Its key initiative, Les initiatives d'excellence (IDEX), has involved, so far, the creation of eight mega-universitiesclusters of existing institutionsto serve as world-class multidisciplinary poles of excellence in higher education and research.

The aspiration reflected in IDEX underpins an agenda for change that is currently extending to all corners of France's higher education sector. This is a sector that in recent years has been the target of a series of reforms, and over a more extended period has been affected by demographic change and European policy initiatives [START_REF] Alix | Resistance to research reforms in France: a historical perspective[END_REF] in this respect it is no different from the higher education sectors of many other developed nations. But sectoral reforms and changes do not occur in a vacuum; they ripple out to impact upon the lives of those who make up the sector. It is this generative effect that is the basis of our discussion and analysis below, for this article is focused on changes to academic working life in France: both change that has occurred and change that is anticipated. We examine the nature of the change and, drawing on theoretical perspectives and policy analysis, build up a discussion that is focused on and culminates in addressing the question: is this the dawn of a new academic professionalism in France, and, if so, what is the nature of this new professionalism? We begin by outlining relevant contextual information: what French higher education currently 'looks like'; how it has evolved, and what the implications are for academics in French universities of this evolution and the consequent changes to the system.

The French higher education system: an overview of its evolution The French higher education system is defined by an ambiguous duality where democratic mass provision co-exists with elitism. Whilst university education is available to any bachelier/bachelière, 1 the grandes écolesexclusive institutions that are probably best described as France's Oxbridge or Ivy League, but which lie outside the university sectorremain impenetrable to all except the privileged minority who choose to take, and who pass, their stringent entry tests, which is by competitive examination, taken on completion of preparatory classes of two years' duration.

In 1960 only 11.3% of eligible (by age) school children in France passed the baccalauréat. Due to a succession of post-war reforms to the compulsory school systema process which the French refer to as the 'democratisation' of schooling, and which included the introduction of a comprehensive system of secondary education in 1974 this percentage has increased over the last decades of the twentieth century, rising from 25.9% in 1980 to 71.6% in 2011. This proliferation of bacheliers/bachelières represents the transition to a mass system of higher education in France, for what it equates to is an increase to the percentage of young people in France (of eligible age) who, by virtue of their having passed the baccalauréat, have the right to a university education. Many of these are the nouveaux lycéens [START_REF] Bautier | L'expérience scolaire des nouveaux lycéens[END_REF], representing a constituency within French societyun public nouveauthat has only recently begun to avail itself of a lycée education for its children. It is for the nouveaux lycéensor, as they are known when they enter higher education, the nouveaux étudiants (literally translated as: new students)that the French university system must now cater.

The new millennium brought other changes to the French higher education system, one of which is the Bologna process. Initiated in 1999, this was one of the instruments for creating and developing a distinct European higher education area, across which student mobility is intended to be both widespread and easily achievable. But its requirement for a two-cycle system (la licence, which is first degree level, and le master, which is master's level) has overturned the structure of French degrees because, pre-Bologna, the norm was a four-year course that led to a master's degree. At national level, too, sweeping changes have come in the form of government reforms. First, research programme legislation (la loi de programme pour la recherche) introduced in April 2006 imposed a specific structure of research activity on French higher education institutions. This reform has three components: the introduction and promulgation of research and higher education clusters known as pôles de recherche et d'enseignement supérieur (PRES); the creation of the Research and Higher Education Evaluation Agency, (l'Agence d'évaluation de la recherche et de l'enseignement supérieur [AERES]); and the establishment of the ANR. The second significant change occurred in 2007, when the law on university autonomy (la loi relative aux libertés et responsabilités des universités) revised the nature of university governance.

The introduction of the PRES is perhaps best explained as the creation of inter-institutional clusters (pôles) of researchers and research groups, who come together to pool their intellectual resources in order to develop critical masses of substantive expertise and interests, and thus potentially increase their impact on an international scale. The pôles are intended to engage in teaching as well as research, and their purpose is to ensure that French research will play a more dominant role on the European and world stages than has hitherto been the case. (The IDEX programme, referred to above, may be seen as an extension of the PRES concept.)

Mirroring the quality assurance role of the Bologna process, the purpose of the AERES is to raise standards by carrying out evaluations of higher education institutions' research 'laboratories' (groups or centres) and of their teaching and degree/ diploma-awarding procedures, on a five-year cycle. Research activity and output are evaluated by a research assessment exercise similar tobut evidently less demanding thanthat of the UK and Australia; academics' research achievements are measured against the criterion to publish, within a five-year period, two scholarly outputs whose quality is considered 'grade A' (e.g. an article that is published in one of the listed recognised journals, or a book chapter that is deemed to be of the requisite standard). It is the research group or teamthe laboratoirethat is the unit of assessment, on the basis of its academic members' published output.

Supporting the PRES initiative, the ANR was introduced for the purpose of shaping the nature and quality, and driving the substantive direction, of research led by and carried out in French higher education institutions. Its modus operandi is to take a lead in setting the national research agenda through determining substantive thematic priorities and launching competitive funding initiatives, such as the one referred to at the start of this article, and for which only research team consortia may apply.

The 2007 legislation introduced a devolved system of university financial and human resource management into French higher education. This new form of institutional governance effectively handed over to universities budgetary powers that had previously rested with the Ministry of Higher Education. This policy has created difficulties in some quarters, with several French universities now having to cope with chronic budget deficit problems.

In giving universities greater autonomy, the legislation has allowed them to extend their inter-institutional groupings and clusters (PRES) into more far-reaching partnerships; indeed, several have made the decision to relocate together or rebrand themselves as newly formed establishments. In 2009 the three Strasbourg universities took this step, and were followed in 2012 by the three Marseilles universities and also by the universities located in the Lorraine region. In a system that has so far been characterised by the duality of grandes écoles co-existing alongside, but unused to working with, universities, the facility for higher education institutions to realign and affiliate themselves with othersor even to mergehas opened up far-reaching possibilities that potentially herald a new phase of co-operation and association not only between different institutions, but also, more significantly, between the two different types of institution. At the end of 2012 there were 26 PRES, which included 60 of the 83 universities that had existed in 2006. Most of these re-groupings involved universities and grandes écolescreating a 'first' for French higher education: a scenario of cooperation between two institutional sectors that was hitherto unknown and unanticipated.

The evolved and evolving context of French higher education: a summary In summary, what we have seen in recent years is a 'shake-up' of French higher education, with the requirement for institutions (if they want to have a chance of securing funding) to come together and work together, and to align the foci of their research activity with specific topics that are determined and, subject to competitive tender in response to its specific initiatives, potentially funded by the newly created National Research Agency. Added to this is the introduction of a form of research activity assessment on the part of the French Ministry of Higher Education, requiring academics to produce a specified number of publications of the requisite quality. We have seen, too, a steady rise over the last few decades in the number of young people in France who have passed the baccalauréat, creating a new constituency of (potential) university students, the defining features of which are that they are the first generation within their families to attend university and represent constituencies of French society that were previously under-represented within the higher education sectoroften lower social classes than those from which French higher education has typically and historically populated its lecture halls and teaching rooms. These nouveaux étudiants generally have different kinds of learning and acculturation needs from those of what was hitherto the 'traditional' French university student. The key issue to be addressed is increased diversification of the student body rather than a quantitative increase; in fact, between 2000 and 2011 the percentage of the eligible population taking up university places fell (Ministère de l'Education nationale 2012). Added to this is what is regarded in France as a significant and recurrent problem of retention at undergraduate level, which the French government is committed to addressing.

The point is that this cocktail of changes to France's higher education system seems destined to impact, to varying degrees, upon the working lives of those who have to contend and cope with them: most notably, academics. Below, we consider whether the changes herald a new professionalism for academics in France, and, if so, what such a new professionalism might look like.

Professionalism: examining the concept It would be remiss of us to address the issue of a potential new professionalism without first clarifying our interpretation of professionalism, for it is a term that is often glibly bandied about without adequate definition or conceptualisation. Kolsaker (2008, 515-16) rightly reminds us that it is 'a challenging concept to research, since the field is relatively under-researched, and such research as exists is criticised as ambiguous and lacking a solid theoretical foundation'. It is, she adds, 'inherently difficult to pinpoint' professionalism's constitution and characteristics; though, as one of us has observed [START_REF] Evans | The 'shape' of teacher professionalism in England: Professional standards, performance management, professional development, and the changes proposed in the 2010 White Paper[END_REF], the implicit assumption that there isor ought to bea single, universally accepted delineation of these is questionable. Indeed, the shifting nature and lack of consensus over the meaning of professionalism is widely acknowledged [START_REF] Evetts | Professionalism: Value and ideology[END_REF], with Gewirtz et al. (2009, 3) arguing for the 'need to work with plural conceptions of professionalism'. A range of views [START_REF] Evetts | Professionalism: Value and ideology[END_REF][START_REF] Freidson | Professionalism: The third logic[END_REF][START_REF] Gewirtz | Policy, professionalism and practice: Understanding and enhancing teachers' work[END_REF][START_REF] Nixon | Not without dust and heat': the moral bases of the 'new' academic professionalism[END_REF]Nooredegraf 2007;[START_REF] Ozga | Deskilling a profession: Professionalism, deprofessionalisation and the new managerialism[END_REF][START_REF] Troman | The rise of the new professionals? The restructuring of primary teachers' work and professionalism[END_REF] represent professionalism variously as, inter alia: a form of occupational control; a socially constructed and dynamic entity; a mode of social coordination; the application of knowledge to specific cases; the use of knowledge as social capital; a normative values system that incorporates consideration of standards, ethics, and quality of service; the basis of the relationship between professionals and their clients or publics; a source of specific identity/ies; and a basis and determinant of social and professional status and power.

In this paper we adopt Evans's (2011) conceptualisation of professionalism, and her definition of it as: work practice that is consistent with commonly-held consensual delineations of a specific profession or occupation and that both contributes to and reflects perceptions of the profession's or occupation's purpose and status and the specific nature, range and levels of service provided by, and expertise prevalent within, the profession or occupation, as well as the general ethical code underpinning this practice. (Evans 2011, 855) Reflecting a shift away from the trait model interpretation of professionalism that persisted throughout much of the twentieth century towards somewhat more egalitarian or imaginative interpretations that feature within the sociology of professions (e.g. [START_REF] Bottero | Interaction distance and the social meaning of occupations[END_REF][START_REF] Evetts | Professionalism: Value and ideology[END_REF]Noordegraaf 2007), professionalism so-defined applies to every occupational workforce, and is interpreted as qualitatively neutralas something that is, rather than something that ought to be; it is simply a description of people's 'mode of being' in a work context, irrespective of whether that translates into practice that is praiseworthy or practice that is despicable [START_REF] Evans | The 'shape' of teacher professionalism in England: Professional standards, performance management, professional development, and the changes proposed in the 2010 White Paper[END_REF] .

Within this conceptualisation professionalism is interpreted as relating to and conveying: what practitioners do; how and why they do it; what they know and understand; where and how they acquire their knowledge and understanding; what (kinds of) attitudes they hold; what codes of behaviour they follow; what their function is: what purposes they perform; what quality of service they provide; and the level of consistency incorporated into the above. These may be considered the key elements or dimensions of professionalism as a concept: its 'constitution', to use [START_REF] Kolsaker | Academic professionalism in the managerialist era: A study of English universities[END_REF] term. This -Evans'sconceptualisation essentially deconstructs professionalism into such key constituent parts, labelled concisely and generically. It is represented pictorially in Figure 1 as a conceptual model.

As indicated in Figure 1, Evans's model identifies three main constituent components of professionalism: behavioural, attitudinal, and intellectual. Each incorporates further elements or dimensions, of which a total of 11 are indicated in Figure 1. In representing professionalism's composition, the model demonstrates its (professionalism's) quiddity through its componential structure. (Quiddity is a little-used term that means the 'whatness' of something: what it is, or its essence.)

The behavioural component of professionalism relates to what practitioners physically do at work. Its sub-components are: the processual, procedural, productive and competential dimensions of professionalism, which relate respectively to: processes The intellectual component of professionalism relates to practitioners' knowledge and understanding and their knowledge structures. Its sub-components are: the epistemological, rationalistic, comprehensive and analytical dimensions of professionalism, which relate respectively to: the bases of people's knowledge; the nature and degree of reasoning that they apply to their practice; what they know and understand; and the nature and degree of their analyticism.

The emergence of a new professionalism in the French academy? Speculation on its form, nature and causes It is not enough simply to claim that a professionalism is, to a greater or lesser extent, 'new'; meaningful analyses go beyond such vagaries and approximations by, for example, identifying the precise nature, and/or indicating the extent, of the 'newness', where possible. To build as much specificity and precision as possible into our analysis we use [START_REF] Evans | The 'shape' of teacher professionalism in England: Professional standards, performance management, professional development, and the changes proposed in the 2010 White Paper[END_REF] conceptual model to examine which specific elements or dimensions of academic professionalism in France are likely to change. The words 'likely to change' are significant, for they denote the nature of the professionalismthat is, its 'reified state' [START_REF] Evans | Professionalism, professionality and the development of education professionals[END_REF][START_REF] Evans | The 'shape' of teacher professionalism in England: Professional standards, performance management, professional development, and the changes proposed in the 2010 White Paper[END_REF])that we examine. Of the four 'reified states' of professionalism identified by [START_REF] Evans | The 'shape' of teacher professionalism in England: Professional standards, performance management, professional development, and the changes proposed in the 2010 White Paper[END_REF] that is, professionalism considered on the basis of how 'real' it isour analysis is of 'deduced' or 'assumed' professionalism: 'reasoned deduction and/or assumption or speculation about the nature of professionalism' (Evans 2011, 862).

A 'deduced' or 'assumed' new academic professionalism: examining the evidence In France there is no established tradition of the academy's researching itself. Indeed, there is a dearth of research into higher education; the few francophone researchers who have distinguished themselves from their compatriot colleagues by focusing their work in this direction represent the deviantscertainly within the French research communityand, with a few notable exceptions (e.g. [START_REF] Musselin | Les universitaires[END_REF][START_REF] Viry | Le monde vécu des universitaires[END_REF], their research tends not to focus on academic working life. De Ketele (2010)a Belgianobserves that there is no francophone journal dedicated to research into higher education, which represents a sharp contrast to the several high-ranking anglophone journals in the fieldalthough we suggest that the Swissbased Revue internationale de pédagogie de l'enseignement supérieur (International Journal of Higher Education Pedagogy) seems to qualify as a contender.

Admittedly, even in the Anglo-Saxon world, research focused on the higher education context is considered relatively new, prompting Tight's (2008, 596) observation that it is 'a developing field of study', which 'could be conceived of as a partially explored territory through which a variety of tribes traverse'. In the francophone world it represents what is essentially unchartered territory, into which only a handful of pioneering explorers have beaten paths, which have led the way not so much for their compatriotswho, at a distance, stand watching from the peripherybut for their anglophone counterparts. (It is ironic that one of these pioneers, Pierre Bourdieu, should have established himself as a key influence on anglophone research into higher educationparticularly, though not exclusively, research into academics at work.) What this means is that there is little empirical research-based evidence of, or scholarly commentary and analysis on, the impact on academic working life of, or the responses of academics to, these reforms to the French higher education sector. Informed conjecture, then, is the sharpest analytical tool at our disposal.

What inform our conjecture are the cases of other, comparable, contexts. We draw upon a selection of these in the next section, where, applying Evans's model, we consider which specific dimensions or components of the professionalism of French-based academics may potentially, or are likely to, change as a result of the reforms outlines above. In Table 1 we present an indicative composite sketch of the potential changes to professionalism that we identify, using Evans's model (depicted in Figure 1) as a framework, and in the sections below we discuss the bases of our reasoning. Combining deduction that is informed by analysis of selected comparable caseswhere these are availableand common sense reasoning that is informed by our understanding of human nature and, specifically, of French cultural traditions and attitudes, this represents 'deduced or assumed' professionalism [START_REF] Evans | The 'shape' of teacher professionalism in England: Professional standards, performance management, professional development, and the changes proposed in the 2010 White Paper[END_REF], applied to academics in France.

Parallel cases of 'new' academic professionalism

Writing of the new forms of governance and management that have taken hold of universities in many developed countries, and focusing particularly on the UK context, Taylor (2006,251) observes that 'these changes require a new response from within the university, especially from within the community of academic staff; change impacts upon both "managers" and "the managed"'. Taylor's study is focused on four research-intensive UK universities that decided to effect governance-and management-related institutional changes that prompted generally positive responses from academic staff:

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for active researchers, speed of university response was important for their own career development and they were enthusiastic about new structures. The emergence of more professional management, both within academic positions … and in administrative services, was warmly welcomed. ( 271)

It was evidently the more streamlined decision-making processes that the UK-based academics in Taylor's study favoured; by reducing bureaucracy, these processes decreased the waiting time for approvals and permissions. The devolution of financial governance and management introduced into the French higher education system by the 2007 legislation has similar potential to affect several dimension of academics' professionalism. In particular, since bureaucratic procedures will inevitably change as a result of devolved budgetary authority, with new institutional-initiated procedures replacing centrally operated ones, it is inevitable that the procedural dimension of academics' professionalism will change, requiring academics to familiarise themselves with, and to work within the context determined by, new procedures. This may, by extension, impact upon the processes that academics apply to their practice and thus affect their productivity. We have noted above, for example, that in some cases the devolution of budgetary authority in the French higher education sector has allowed new inter-institutional networks, collaborations and partnerships to be formed and to flourish, and in other cases financial mismanagement must have had the effect of tightening the purse stringsboth of which require academics to adapt and compromise by adopting new ways of working, and are likely to have affected what they 'produce' or 'do' at work. Processual and productive changes to the professionalism of academics in the French higher education system are therefore likely to occur or to have already occurred, and if these are indeed favourably received, then the motivational dimension of academics' professionalism is also likely to be affected, as satisfaction levels are raised. Yet even if this scenario materialises, it may be counterbalanced by lowered morale and motivation as a response to other aspects of the 2007 legislation and to other reforms in Franceindeed, the reforms (particularly la loi relative aux libertés et responsabilités des universités) prompted protracted industrial action and unrest between 2007 and 2009 [START_REF] Marshall | France: academics strike over job status[END_REF][START_REF] Osborn | France: End to academic strikes?[END_REF]).

The nature and extent of changes to academic professionalism as a result of the massification of French higher education may be conjectured on the basis of evidence from countries that have already experienced such reformmost notably, the UK and Australia, where expansion and massification were met with negativity in some quarters. For Australian higher education the major reform initiative came in 1999 with the Wills Review, which kick-started the massification process. Then in December of the same year a policy statement on research and research training, Knowledge and Innovation, led to the introduction of, inter alia, a 'strengthened Australian Research Council (ARC) and an invigorated national competitive grants system' (Gamage and Mininberg 2003, 188), which resonates with the introduction in France of the ANR.

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Whilst Gamage and Mininberg do not examine the impact of this initiative on academic professionalism in Australia, the language that Taylor et al. (1998) employ to convey the impact of massificationthey write of 'fundamental reforms' and 'far-reaching changes' (256), and of the system's being 'transformed', through a 'metamorphosis' (255)implies extensive change to the working lives, and hence to the professionalism, required of Australia's academics to implement the reforms. Indeed, the findings from their questionnaire survey to academic staff indicate perceptions of increased workloads, resulting from having to do more with less, such as catering for increased student numbers and carrying out more administrative tasks, with fewer resources, since this was evidently a period of declining resources and funding. Moreover, the creation of new universities meant that, technically, more academics were now competing for research funding: 'The debate here focused on the "dilution" of research funding at a time when, it was argued, valuable research needed to be focused on research institutions and researchers with good track records' (262). Added to this, newly introduced increased bureaucratisation of the research application process, [START_REF] Taylor | A bleak outlook: Academic staff perceptions of changes in core activities in Australian higher education, 1991-96[END_REF] report, deterred academics from applying for funding.

These Australia-based academics, then, would have had to familiarise themselves with and adopt new procedures and modify the processes that they applied to their practicethough there is little reference (implicit or explicit) in Taylor et al.'s (1998) article to the impact of the reforms on academic professionalism. This is hardly surprising, since the article predates the attention to this topic, and the prominence within the higher education-focused research vernacular of the terms 'professionalism' and 'professionalisation', that have become more noticeable since the turn of the millennium, and particularly within the last five or six years. Arguably, it was Halsey's (1992) Decline of Donnish Dominion that, with its application of the term 'proletarianization' to the then embryonic discourse on academic working life, introduced a flicker of awareness of post-reform professionalism-related issues that then needed to be fanned progressively over the next few years in order to be fully ignited. In the UK, what were interpreted as deleterious changes to academic professionalism resulting principally from expansion and massification have been chronicled; Halsey (1992) attributes lowered morale to the decline in status that, he argues, results from the proliferation of academic posts necessitated by the expansion policy and to the proletarianization of the academic profession.

Yet it is important to exercise caution in drawing parallels between Halsey's commentary and the current French context. The UK's expansion of its higher education sector that was initiated by the 1963 Robbins Reportwhich is Halsey's main focus occurred through a series of reforms over the decades that, collectively, increased the number of university places available 'to all those who are qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and who wish to do so' (Robbins Report 1963, 8). Certainly, this 'Robbins principle' matches the principle underpinning the French democratisation policy that was to start in the compulsory sector in the 1970 s and is now extending its impact to the higher education sector. In the UK, by the turn of the millennium the agenda first drafted by Robbins had culminated in a situation that Bryson and Barnes (2000, 148) describe: 'Much of the recent emphasis has been on recruiting non-traditional students with rather different needs than [sic] affluent, middle class school leavers … although the vast majority of students are still of the latter type'. Such is the nouveaux étudiants-related parallel in France. But the more gradual and relatively gentle evolution that has occurred in France as the number of bacheliers/bachelières has steadily increased over the decades is likely to lower morale to a much lesser extent than what, in contrast, amounted to a protracted revolution in the UK, as successive bursts of far-reaching reform initiatives have repeatedly shaken the elitist foundations of academia. The first casualties of this revolutionacademia's ruling classes: the Oxbridge dons, who were a key focus of Halsey's studyhaving had their comfortable, privileged lifestyles overturned and their status-related distinction diluted, were predictably disgruntled. Demographic-related changes in and to the French academy have in most respects occurred less abruptly than did those to have shaken the UK's universities in the 1990s, and they may also have been anticipated by academics in France, with the expansion and massification processes in other developed countries having paved the way and served to prepare them for any parallel changes to their own national context, for they must surely have seen which way the wind of change was blowing. Moreover, what Halsey identified as the proletarianization-accelerating, morale-lowering reforms were more far-reaching than the obvious and direct result of the UK's massification policy: increased numbers of students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. Of the entire UK university sector Oxbridge wasand, arguably still isthe least affected by this anticipated demographic trend (though Halsey's survey samples were not confined to Oxbridge academics). As [START_REF] Bryson | Working in higher education in the United Kingdom[END_REF], cited above, observe, the higher education student demographic in the UK has not altered dramatically, and it is mainly the post-1992 universities that receive non-traditional students who equate to France's nouveaux étudiantsa trend that Schuetze and Slowey (2002, 316) identified across the developed countries (which excluded France) involved in their study of non-traditional students in higher education: 'All the ten countries included in the study provided evidence that the more elite universities are often very reluctant to open up access for nontraditional students'. They also observe of non-university and newer institutions: 'Although they may enjoy less autonomy, they often feature programs and modes of delivery that better meet the demand of non-traditional students' (319). But France does not have the same vertically diversified hierarchical distinction within its university sector as persists in several other countries, and which is evident in the UK between universities representing different mission groupsparticularly the status-related divide between pre-and post-1992 institutions. Certainly, there are in France university institutes of technology (instituts universitaires de technologie [IUT]), which offer shorter professional or technological-focused diploma courses, and there is status-related distinction between the French universities (les facs) and the prestigious grandes écoles; but, due to shortage of places on IUT courses, it is non-IUT courses within the French universities that are receiving the most nouveaux étudiants a situation that, it is believed [START_REF] Aschieri | Réussir la démocratisation de l'enseignement supérieur: l'enjeu du premier cycle. Avis du Conseil économique, social et environnemental[END_REF], is setting up most of these students for failure. In France it is within universities that major distinctions occur, with some disciplines valuing and accommodating the needs of the nouveaux étudiants more than other disciplines, illustrating the 'démocratie ségrégative' to which [START_REF] Merle | Le concept de démocratisation de l'institution scolaire: une typologie et sa mise à l'épreuve[END_REF] refers.

In France there is therefore no replication of the scenario in the UK, Belgium (De Wit and Verhoeven 2003) and other countries [START_REF] Schuetze | Participation and exclusion: a comparative analysis of non-traditional students and lifelong learners in higher education[END_REF], whereby nouveaux étudiants gravitate towards specific lower ranking institutions that the middle classes tend to eschew. Ratheras is the case in 'less vertically diversified' higher education systems, such as those of Canada and Sweden, which are admitting large numbers of non-traditional students [START_REF] Schuetze | Participation and exclusion: a comparative analysis of non-traditional students and lifelong learners in higher education[END_REF])all French universities could potentially (and do) find themselves receiving this new constituency of student, which means that the student body at any universitycomprising traditional and non-traditional studentsis likely to manifest a wide range of learning and study skills, experience, and preparedness for higher education.

Yet, ironically, it is the countries whose higher education systems represent vertical differentiation that often seem to cope best with the challenges of catering for non-traditional students, as Schuetze and Slowey (2002, 319) observe:

The traditional high-ranking research universities … can focus on research and initial higher education of a more selective body of studentsexamples include the elite universities in the US, the UK and Japanleaving the task of providing for non-traditional students to universities with lower rank or to non-university institutions.

Countries that are highly centralised tend not to incorporate the systemic flexibility that permits localised, idiosyncratic or 'bespoke' responses to non-traditional students' learning needs, whereas the least regulated and most diversified higher education systems tend to offer such a plethora of diverse provision that there will usually be something for everyone [START_REF] Schuetze | Participation and exclusion: a comparative analysis of non-traditional students and lifelong learners in higher education[END_REF]. In France, thenwhich operates a highly centralised education systemwhat are the changes to their practice that academics find themselves having to take on to deal with an increasingly diverse student body, and how might this impact upon their professionalism?

To address this question we consider the UK higher education sector of over 20 years ago. Anticipating the impact of the country's higher education reforms, Ramsden outlined a changed form of 'demanded' [START_REF] Evans | Professionalism, professionality and the development of education professionals[END_REF][START_REF] Evans | The 'shape' of teacher professionalism in England: Professional standards, performance management, professional development, and the changes proposed in the 2010 White Paper[END_REF]) academic professionalism in the UK: the average university or polytechnic teacher is now expected to be an excellent teacher: a man or woman who can expertly redesign courses and methods of teaching to suit different groups of students, deal with large mixed-ability classes, and juggle new administrative demands, while at the same time carrying a heavy research responsibility and showing accountability to a variety of masters as both a teacher and a scholar. How are we to adapt to this changed environment? (Ramsden 1992, 2) In fact, Ramsden's alarmism was to prove relatively unfounded. First, the amount of time that UK-based academics spend weekly on teaching decreased between 1992 and 2007, according to the results of two surveys carried out in each of these years, while the number of hours spent weekly on research, across both pre-and post-1992 university academics, increased [START_REF] Locke | The academic profession in England: Still stratified after all these years?[END_REF]. Second, the newest constituencies of 'first generation' university students in the UK tended to select, or be accepted by, the former polytechnics. As new, post-1992, universities, these institutions generally prioritised teaching over their relatively under-developed research agendas and ambitionsa situation that has changed little in the intervening years. The French context, however, as we observe above, is different from the UK one, and the scenario that Ramsden predicted in 1992 may well apply to France's academics. Indeed, the French Ministry of Higher Educationfully aware of the challenges presented by massificationlaunched a project in 2008 for supporting those students most likely to flounder. The Plan pour la réussite en licenceintended to maximise the first degree success ratewas backed up by an initial investment of over 700 million euros over five years, devolved to universities, for the provision of, inter alia: mentoring and guidance to students; up to five additional hours' teaching per week, per student, throughout the course of the first degree programme; personal tutors for students; and a supplementary foundation year that is multidisciplinary in focus. Its goal is to reduce undergraduate drop-out. On its website, the University of Franche-Comté, for example, describes the Plan as 'une opportunité pour une nouvelle pédagogie centrée sur la réussite de l'étudiant' (an opportunity for a new pedagogy focused on student success). By its fifth year -2012however, it became clear that the 'plan licence' has failed to meet this goal [START_REF] Morlaix | Essai de mesure des effets du Plan Réussite en Licence[END_REF]; Higher Education Minister, Geneviève Fioraso, was reported [START_REF] Florin | Le plan licence n'a servi à rien[END_REF] to have commented 'le plan licence n'a servi à rien. Au contraire, l'échec en premier cycle a augmenté de 4%. On a dépensé 700 millions d'euros sans effet positif' (the Plan has achieved nothing.

In fact, the drop-out rate from the first cycle [of the bachelor's degree programme] has increased by 4%. 700 million euros have been spent to no effect). Indeed, it is recognised that, with the freedom to spend their budgets as they see fit, 'Bien souvent les établissements n'ont fait que maintenir ou renforcer des pratiques préexistantes' (very often institutions have simply retained or reinforced existing practice) (Aschieri 2012, 18).

In the light of these figures one must question the extent to which teaching approaches in French universities have so far changeda consideration that is also evident both in a recent government report, Réussir la démocratisation de l'enseignement supérieur: l'enjeu du premier cycle, published by France's Conseil économique, social et environnemental (CESE) [START_REF] Aschieri | Réussir la démocratisation de l'enseignement supérieur: l'enjeu du premier cycle. Avis du Conseil économique, social et environnemental[END_REF], and in the rationale for the ANR's IDEFI initiative, referred to in the first paragraph of this article. The Plan seems focused more on support structures than on teaching practice, and, as [START_REF] Morlaix | Essai de mesure des effets du Plan Réussite en Licence[END_REF] observe, there is a dearth of research into its effectiveness. Their own comparative study of six cohorts of first-year undergraduates found evidence of diverse practices, such as remedial teaching, student mentoring and more interactive teaching methods, but these seemed to make little difference to students' learning and results.

In the UK the massification process has been accompanied by a sector-wide staff professional development initiative [START_REF] Daniel | The challenge of mass higher education[END_REF][START_REF] Evans | Teaching and learning in higher education[END_REF][START_REF] Rowland | Turning academics into teachers?[END_REF]. Similarly, as Arimoto (2008, 20) explains, in Japan academic development dealing with diversity has become a priority: how to develop the quality and ability of the academic staff has become part of the process of implementing educational diversification to cope with student diversity. As a result, the institutionalization of FD [faculty development] has become one of the most important reforms in higher education.

Institutional academic staff development provision in the UK has gone from strength to strength, and it is reasonable to assume that institutional academic development unitsnow ubiquitous across the UK's higher education sectorhave facilitated and supported whatever changes to academic professionalism were considered necessary and/or have evolved; indeed, their very presence signals to academics their institutions' prioritisation of continued development, which, in turn, perpetuates a culture of developmentalism. Yet in France the notion of continued professional development is an alien concept; it is not embedded within workplace culture. There is no tradition of career-long professional development, and little or no formal recognition of its value or of the need for it; francophone research literature on professional development relates almost exclusively to the context of pre-service training or the acculturation of those entering a profession. There is an implicit assumption that such initial training or development ( formation) equips one for the duration of one's career. This cultural tradition is now being questioned, as the French government seeks new ways to tackle the problem of undergraduate drop-out and is considering the merits of professional development for academics, arguing that its absence is one of the factors underpinning excessive student failure and drop-out. The CESE's 2012 report observes that:

Les personnels enseignants sont peu ou pas formés à l'accueil de ces nouvelles générations d'étudiants. L'absence de formation pédagogique reste malheureusement la règle pour les enseignants chercheurs. 2 (Aschieri 2012, 17) Its recommendation is for a change of attitude towards professional preparation and development that is directed towards supporting academics in better meeting students' diverse needs, and that this should become a focus of research. It also recommends that academics' career-development-related assessment incorporates consideration of their teaching quality and approaches:

Un véritable changement des mentalités est nécessaire pour impulser une logique d'enseignement centrée sur les besoins des étudiants. La formation initiale et continue doit jouer un rôle majeur pour donner aux enseignants les outils nécessaires à ces évolutions. 3 (Aschieri 2012, 30) It should become incorporated into academics' conditions of service, recommends the CESE, that they should undertake professional development related to teaching. Currently, it is observed, academics are assessed only on their research activity and output, which creates an environment and professional culture that prioritise master's level teaching (within which academics can more easily disseminate their research, allowing them to find a synergy between research and teaching) over undergraduate teaching. The recommendation is: 'd'assurer à chaque enseignant du supérieur une formation pédagogique, totalement inexistante aujourd'hui. Cela contribuerait fortement à valoriser leur investissement dans le cycle licence' 4 (Aschieri 2012, 39). Moreover, this recommendation is in line with the policy of establishing Écoles supérieures du professorat et de l'éducation (ESPE)a new form of institution for the provision of training in higher education pedagogy. The far greater prioritisation of research than of undergraduate teaching that is embedded in academic culture in France is identified as problematic in the CESE's report [START_REF] Aschieri | Réussir la démocratisation de l'enseignement supérieur: l'enjeu du premier cycle. Avis du Conseil économique, social et environnemental[END_REF]; Dejean (2006, 72) similarly remarks that most academics in France view teaching almost as a necessary evil: as 'cette activité qu'il faut bien assurer pour pouvoir faire de la recherche' (an activity that has to be carried out in order to be able to do research).

Whilst it may underpin what Evans (2011) identifies as processual change (which includes the ways in which academics undertake their teaching), the change of mentality that the CESE calls for represents perceptual change: modifications to perceptions of the purposes and benefits of teaching, and of what the learning process should involve. The new focus on training and development will potentially represent profound changes to the ways in which academics in France consider and carry out their work.

Changes to the perceptual dimension of academic professionalism may also be manifested by academics' broadened perceptions of the profile of the higher education student, which may be accompanied by, or prompt, evaluative changein the form of changes to the value that academics place on issues related to the democratisation of higher education (e.g. social justice; equality of opportunity; access to higher education). Such egalitarian and democratic sensibility is, after all, firmly embedded 1216 L. Broadfoot (2008, 267) refers to as 'national psyche'. Motivational change to academic professionalismin the form of (positive or negative) changes to academics' motivation, morale and job satisfaction levels, and to the factors that influence theseis a likely response to the nouveaux étudiants issue. An academic may, for example, find her or himself deriving unanticipated increased fulfilment from working with first generation students from working class backgrounds to develop their study skills and broaden their horizons. Converselyas occurred with a small number of the UK-based academics in a case study of a research-intensive British university in the early 1990 s (Evans and Abbott 1998)lowered morale and job satisfaction within the French academy may reflect academics' longing for a return to what they perceive as a 'golden age' that was marked, in part, by competent students who were self-motivated and did not require spoon-feeding. Such is the potential '"attitude problem" in those who might appear to be somewhat less than firm in their commitment to change' to which Hartley (1995, 156) refers in his examination of the implementation of Scotland's Macfarlane Report, Teaching and learning in an expanding higher education system. Resentment at having to engage in newly introduced professional development programmes, and at the detraction from research of teaching-focused demands, may also demoralise some academics. Indeed, Annoot (2012, 105) records such negative responses, paralleling Halsey's (1992) identification of the proletarianization of the academic profession, on the part of some academics in Francenot only to the challenge of having to deal with non-traditional students, but also with the Bologna-imposed reform to the degree cycle structure: 'pour certains enseignants-chercheurs, le travail pédagogique imposé par la massification et par la réforme LMD devient donc le symbole d'une dégradation de leurs conditions de travail et d'une rupture du contrat qui les liait à leur administration'. 5

The dawn of a new academic professionalism in France?

The recommendation of the CESE report in relation to academics' responsibilities for accommodating the needs of non-traditional undergraduates, coupled with potential changes to academic practice that the other recent reforms have the potential to effect (some of which we outline above), may, indeed, herald the dawn of a new academic professionalism in France.

Our deduction or conjecture leads us to sketch out a potential new professionalism (summarised in Table 1, which effectively depicts the 'shape' of this deduced professionalism) that represents changes in relation to all 11 dimensions identified by [START_REF] Evans | The 'shape' of teacher professionalism in England: Professional standards, performance management, professional development, and the changes proposed in the 2010 White Paper[END_REF]. The most significant changes are likely to be to the processes that academics apply to their work, as they adopt more collaborative working practices demanded by the PRES initiative, ensure that their research activity and foci correspond with the accountability measures and priorities imposed by the AERES and the ANR, and for those motivated or obliged to do soadopt new, innovative teaching approaches directed at engaging the nouveaux étudiants. There will also potentially be significant productive change, as additional time is spent not only on pedagogical training and development, but also on teaching planning and preparation. Achieving research output that meets the AERES evaluation requirements also seems likely to impact on the productive dimension of professionalism. Yet what fundamentally denote a new professionalism are changed attitudes, for these are the bedrock of professional culture. Such change cannot be legislated or imposed, and it does not occur speedily or on demand, at the insistence of employers or paymasters. If it occurs at all, attitudinal change seldom does so with unanimity and simultaneity; rather, it is a slow, evolutionary process that often depends heavily on the replenishment and renewal that occurs naturally, over time, as older or disgruntled members of the workforce leave and are replaced by those who have never known anything other than the situation delineated by current demands, and who therefore have fewer objections to it.

The French government may hope for, or demand of academics, a new academic professionalism that incorporates the behavioural, attitudinal and intellectual components that best match its (the French government's) policy agenda and vision. Yet unless it is enacted, demanded or requested professionalism represents nothing more than unfulfilled vision or wishful thinking. As has been observed [START_REF] Broadfoot | Comparative perspectives on the changing roles of teachers[END_REF][START_REF] Evans | Professionalism, professionality and the development of education professionals[END_REF][START_REF] Evans | The 'shape' of teacher professionalism in England: Professional standards, performance management, professional development, and the changes proposed in the 2010 White Paper[END_REF][START_REF] Hoyle | Educational reform: An ironic perspective[END_REF][START_REF] Lingard | Pedagogizing teacher professional identities[END_REF], seldom does 'enacted professionalism' represent uniformity and consistency, and seldom does it correspond with 'demanded or requested professionalism' [START_REF] Evans | Professionalism, professionality and the development of education professionals[END_REF][START_REF] Evans | The 'shape' of teacher professionalism in England: Professional standards, performance management, professional development, and the changes proposed in the 2010 White Paper[END_REF])a point reinforced by [START_REF] Trowler | Beyond the Robbins trap: Reconceptualising academic responses to change in higher education (or … quiet flows the don?)[END_REF] analysis of the UK's academic profession in the wake of the Robbins and subsequent reforms.

How likely are academics in France to embrace and 'enact' a new professionalism in response to the sequence of reforms and changing policy situations that have reshaped the sector within which they operate? Whilst the dust now appears to have settled, widespread opposition on the part of the academic community in France to many aspects of the higher education reforms has been conveyed through industrial action [START_REF] Marshall | France: academics strike over job status[END_REF][START_REF] Osborn | France: End to academic strikes?[END_REF], suggesting that attitudinal changechanges to perceptions; to motivation, morale and job satisfaction and the factors that influence them; and to values and the things that matter to academicswill be elusive. But attitudinal change often lags behind behavioural change, when hearts and minds are gradually and variously won over as practitioners begin to see (at least some) benefits and advantages of changes to their practice that they find themselves, to varying degrees, implementing.

With the succession of reforms and demographic changes that have impacted upon the French academy in recent years, the evolution of a new academic professionalism seems to have been set in motion. It appears that night has fallen on an academic professionalism that in many respects enjoyed self-indulgence and that clung to outmoded, twentieth century perceptions of status, purpose and priorities, resulting in its somewhat lagging behind the new professionalisms to which academics in other developed European national contexts have now, for the most part, reconciled themselves and which they have begun to enact [START_REF] Kolsaker | Academic professionalism in the managerialist era: A study of English universities[END_REF]. A new day seems to be dawning in France. How quickly daybreak will come, and what that new day will look like, will depend both on the policies implemented by the French Ministry of Higher Education and the attitudes of the French academic community, but it is inevitable that, given the magnitude of sectoral changes to have occurred, sooner or later a new academic professionalism will be discernible. approach to teaching that is focused on students' needs. Pre-and in-service training needs to play a key role in equipping teachers for this change. 4. Translated loosely into English as: to ensure that every academic receives training in higher education pedagogy, which is currently entirely absent. That would contribute greatly to increasing their prioritisation of undergraduate education. 5. Translated loosely into English as: so for some academics, the teaching-related work that has been necessitated by massification and the reform of the 1st, master's and doctoral degree cycle is becoming symbolic of deleterious conditions of service and of a breach of contract.

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  Studies in Higher Education 1205 Downloaded by [Laurent Cosnefroy] at 11:28 21 October 2013 that people apply to their work; procedures that they apply to their work; output, productivity and achievement (how much people 'do' and what they achieve); and their skills and competences. The attitudinal component of professionalism relates to attitudes held. Its sub-components are: the perceptual, evaluative, and motivational dimensions of professionalism, which relate respectively to: perceptions, beliefs and views held (including those relating to oneself, hence self-perception and identity); people's values (not only 'grand' values, such as social justice, but also the minutiae of what matters to people and is important to them: what they value); and people's motivation, job satisfaction and morale.

Figure 1 .

 1 Figure 1. Evans's model of the componential structure of professionalism.

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Notes 1 .

 1 Holder of the baccalauréat, the examination taken at age 18, at the end of compulsory schooling. 1218 L. Evans and L. Cosnefroy Downloaded by [Laurent Cosnefroy] at 11:28 21 October 2013 2. Translated loosely into English as: University teachers have had little or no training in dealing with these new generations of students. Lack of pedagogical training unfortunately remains the norm for academics. 3. Translated loosely into English as: A real change of attitude is needed to kick-start an

Table 1 .

 1 Indicative envisaged changes to academic professionalism in France, by dimension (as identified by[START_REF] Evans | The 'shape' of teacher professionalism in England: Professional standards, performance management, professional development, and the changes proposed in the 2010 White Paper[END_REF], in relation to specific policy reforms or changed circumstances/trends.

	Studies in Higher Education	1207

Table 1 .

 1 (Continued .)

		Dimension of		French higher education policy or practice shift or initiative		1210
		academic
	Downloaded by [Laurent Cosnefroy] at 11:28 21 October 2013	professionalism (as shown in Figure 1) conjectured to change Motivational Intellectual Epistemological Rationalistic Comprehensive Analytical	PRES Altered motivation levels; Changes to factors that influence motivation; Changes to morale levels; Changes to sources of job satisfaction Widening of the knowledge bases drawn upon/utilised Increased need to rationalise decision-making Increased understanding of other institutions / sectors/ disciplinary traditions, etc.; Increased methodological and substantive understanding Increased capacity for analysis through development of	AERES Altered motivation levels; Changes to factors that influence motivation; Changes to morale levels; changes to sources of job satisfaction Increased understanding of what needs to be done to satisfy the requirements imposed by the evaluation system	ANR Altered motivation levels; Changes to factors that influence motivation; Changes to morale levels; Changes to sources of job satisfaction Changes to the knowledge bases drawn upon/ utilised Increased need to rationalise decisions/ proposals Increased understanding of what needs to be done to secure research funding	Governance Altered motivation levels; Changes to factors that influence motivation; Changes to morale levels; Changes to sources of job satisfaction	Nouveaux étudiants Altered motivation levels; Changes to factors that influence motivation; Changes to morale levels; Changes to sources of job satisfaction Widening of the knowledge bases underpinning teaching practice Increased understanding of students' differentiated needs; Increased understanding of the principles and practice of teaching that engages Increased need for reflective practice that incorporates	L. Evans and L. Cosnefroy
			analytical skills				analysis of what worked
							and what did not work, and
							why

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Studies in Higher Education

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Giuseppe Iurato

Affectivity: a formalization attempt from psychoanalysis

After having provided a first synthetic overview of the various definitions of affectivity and related notions which have been given in modern and contemporary psychology, we shall see that psychoanalysis is the only psychological context able to provide a conceptual framework for a first possible formalization attempt of affectivity. In this first contribution, we introduce the basic notions of psychoanalysis related to affectivity, as a first step to build up a framework suitable to formalize affectivity for possible computational implementations.

A general overview of the main psychological conceptions of affectivity

Traditional psychopathology subdivides human psyche in three main parts: the knowledge sphere (comprehending perception, attention, memory, intelligence, thought, and turned to understanding external reality), the conation sphere (regarding will, decision and action) and the affective sphere (which concerns subjective psychic experiences evaluated according to the basic principle pleasuredispleasure). This division is only contrived and due simply to didactic aims, as these three main spheres of human psyche are closely related of each other. In particular, rational thought and sentiments are closely related, and as early Eugen Bleuler pointed out that any intellective process implies a resonance of sentiments, and vice versa these latter may retrieve or arouse recalls guiding our thought, so affective and intellective processes are two different aspects of the same psychic life 1 . So, since Bleuler's work, the close relationship affect-intellect was well-known (De Giacomo 1972, Cap. 1;Sarteschi & Maggini 1982, Cap. 2, § VIII).

Nevertheless, even until up recent times, the above three main partsin which human psyche has been subdividedhave been considered as separated of each other, and not rather as integrated of each other and reciprocally inseparable, as current psychology does. However, it has been Freudian psychoanalysis to have, for first, pointed out the crucial role played by affectivity, occurring in the irrational thought processes, for the development of the rational ones, the former being even more frequent than the latter (Miller 1993, Ch. 2, § 7.1). Freud considered a wider spectrum of affectivity as influencing decisively human psyche since childhood, comprehending new perspectives still not taken into consideration by cognitive psychology but which should provide a more complete view of child psyche compatible with recent trends of modern psychology, like social cognition and metacognition (Miller 1993, Ch. 2, § 7.1). Further, Robert [START_REF] Zajonc | Feeling and thinking: Preferences need no inferences[END_REF][START_REF] Zajonc | Affective and cognitive-factors in preferences[END_REF] has distinguished between cold and hot thoughts, so claiming an independence between affect and cognition, but also that the former is stronger and precedes the latter [START_REF] Zajonc | On the primacy of affect[END_REF]. Some other theories assign a major role to cognition in emotionality, called cognitive theories of emotion, which state that emotions are not only due to reactions of autonomous nervous system but also to the attendance of cognitive mechanisms based on a interpretative processes that each individual works 1 Bleuler pointed out as affective states may favourite associations corresponding to the basis of affectivity, that is to say, to the mood's tone. When this condition is particularly exalted, Bleuler speaks of holothymia (Sarteschi & Maggini 1982, Cap. 2, § VIII). Next studies have pointed out further the remarkable role played by emotions in integrating as well as disintegrating ideas in dependence on their nature (Bini & Bazzi 1971, Cap. V, § A)-d); Conti & Principe 1989, Parte V, Cap. 6). Also Jean Piaget pointed out the important role of emotions for cognitive processes, saying that emotions are the energy for behaviour (Miller 1993, Ch. 1, § 8.2).

out in dependence on that specific social-environmental context in which such an emotive state arises (Lindzey et al. 1975, Ch. 11;Oliverio 1982, Cap. 15;[START_REF] Oliverio Ferraris | Psicologia della paura[END_REF]Scherer et al. 1975, Ch. 2).

According to Freudian psychoanalysis, which has been the first psychological theory to highlight the fundamental importance of affectivity for human psyche, affect (Affekt) is one of the two main components of a (psychic) drive2 , the remaining one being the representation. So, any psychic drive has two main components: representation and affect. The latter undergoes three main mechanisms, namely: i) conversion of affects; ii) displacement of affect; iii) transformation of affect. Later, Freud defined affect as the subjective transposition of the quantity of instinctual energy. The amount (or quote) of affect (Affektbetrag) corresponds to the separation of the drive from the representation, so finding a new expressionproportional to its entitythrough those processes that become, or may become, sensible to affectivity [START_REF] Favrod | La Psychanalyse[END_REF][START_REF] Galimberti | Nuovo Dizionario di Psicologia, Psichiatria, Psicoanalisi, Neuroscienze[END_REF]. Psychoanalysis distinguishes between a conscious affectivity (which is the usual object of study of general psychology, referring to the awareness of lived subjective experiences) and an unconscious affectivity, not necessarily linked to mental representations and autonomous with respect to its possible various manifestations, so this latter type of affectivity (which may be identified with the amount of affect of above) may give rise to a new emotional expression not having any correlation with the original qualitatively affective state from which it arises (Giberti & Rossi 1996, Cap. 2, § V).

According to classical psychological tradition, affective phenomena are classified, in dependence on their intensity, duration and modality of rising, in feelings (or sentiments), emotions (and passions) and mood. Therefore, affectivity may be characterized either qualitatively (in regard to the basic opposition pleasure-displeasure) and quantitatively (in regard to the intensity of expression). Affectivity plays a central role for all the psychic life of any individual and, in normality conditions, should be adequately integrated with personality (Delay & Pichot 1965, Cap. VIII); it is furthermore two-way related closely with many other psychic functions [START_REF] Benedetti | Neuropsicologia. Le attività psichiche in una sintesi di psicologia sperimentale, neurofisiologia e psichiatria[END_REF], Parte I, Cap. XVI, § I); Bini & Bazzi 1971, Cap. V, § A)-d)). To be precise, human psyche may be considered structured in three main strata hierarchically overlapped: the first basic stratum is that of vegetative and instinctual psychic functions, the phylogenetically oldest one, upon which relies the second stratum of lower psychic functions linked to temperament, basically having an affective nature, supporting the third and last stratum, that of upper psychic functions linked to character, phylogenetically the newest, relying on the previous two strata, mainly roles the consciousness acts. A normal psychic condition is provided by a right proportional intertwinement among these three strata, to reach an equilibrium between affects and thought, and between instincts and determinations of the will (De Giacomo 1972, Cap. 1). Mood, as has been already said, is the basic vital affective tonality which permanently shapes, in a certain manner, the existence of any human being. It is the basal or ground state of affectivity. Kurt Schneider indentified a basis of mood as well as a background of mood: the former refers to proper mood's tone, the constant colour of affectivity, which is deeply rooted in the human psyche, almost unconscious, but operating causally according to the adaptive regulation of instincts as acquired by each individual, while the latter is an affective state usually depending on the various contingent circumstances which may influence all the next emotive responses of the subject, but for a limited temporal range3 ; furthermore, the former may influence the latter in its emotional responses which depend also on cognitive factors as these orient toward pleasure or displeasure in regard to a same situation emotively stimulating (Giberti & Rossi, Cap. 2, § V;Sarteschi & Maggini 1982, Cap. 2, § VIII). In this sense, we may speak of a social component of an emotional state as it is determined by either the (unaware) activation of a physiological state and the social-cultural context in which it takes place so influencing cognitively the qualitative type of emotion (i.e., pleasing or displeasing). So, emotive sphere is influenced by social phenomena (Doise et al. 1978, Ch. 18) through the socalled social cognition, a social psychology construct (Miller 1993, Ch. 2, § 7.1;Palmonari et al. 2012, Cap. 1).

Emotions, as the final outcome of cause-effect phenomena with triggering events (Karl Jaspers), are affective states, associated to perceptions, which are rapidly reactive, much intense, with a rapid and sharp rising, influencing deeply almost all the psychic processes and behaviour, with the occurrence of somatic reactions. Some authors identify a few numbers of typical and fundamental emotions. Passions are emotions at a chronic level, that is, protracted in the time, consisting in a prolonged and intense persistence of an emotional state, often linked to a certain ideational complex, such that all the other psychic facts lost their vitality and interest (De Giacomo 1972, Cap. 1). Emotions are deemed to have ancestral nature, due to cerebral brain circuits rigidly programmed phylogenetically (Eibl-Eibesfeldt 2001, Cap. 2, § 2.2.5), and play a fundamental role for the life of every individual (Carlson 1977, Ch. 16).

Feelings are quite persistent, oriented 4 nuclear components of affectivity, not having a transitory nature as emotions and passions, which go to bind to ideas gradually these come, like those of own Ego (i.e., the egoic feeling), mother, father, family, parents, society, nation, religion, ethic, etc 5 . So, feelings structurate hierarchically along a scale ascending gradually ontogenetic evolution of an individual increases from a social-cultural stance 6 . Feelings basically are nothing but the affective resonance with which every individual does experience of her or his own bodily reality, her or his either personal and social psychological processes. Max Scheler distinguished among: i) sensations with affective charge (bodily localized and having sensorial nature); ii) somatic affective sensations (closely related to coenaesthesia and general vitality); iii) psychic feelings (regarding the Ego and having a reactive nature); iv) spiritual feelings (concerning spiritualistic dimension). Then, affective sensations i) and ii) are immediately preceded by an organic-bodily modification, and the feelings iii) and iv) by a consciousness state modification [START_REF] Bini | Psicologia medica. II edizione aggiornata e ampliata da Tullio Bazzi, con la collaborazione di L[END_REF], Cap. V, A); Sarteschi & Maggini 1982, Cap. 2, § VIII).

Temperament (or disposition) refers to the psychological component of the organic substratum of affectivity. It is mainly determined geneticallyhence, it regards genotypeand comprehends potentiallyat birthall those allowed characteriological components which will be phenotipically explicitated or actuated later during epi-ontogenetic development in which either individual and environment components met to give rise character which therefore will turn out to be featured by: usual mood's tone, more or less emotionality, predominant feelings. So, character is also definable as the class of those stable affective tendencies with which each individual orients, constantly and habitually, her or his own actions and reactions to the external stimuli of the environment in which she or he lives also in relation to society and world to which he or she belongs (personality 7 ). Such a stability of the individual dispositions, as typical aspects of the character, is mainly due to the constancy of the mood by means of the so-called mood's fundamental tone which is that primary affective intonation of each individual stably oriented towards a major susceptibility for pleasure or displeasure, along the continuum axis pleasure-displeasure, so that such a mood's tone may be cheerful (until up exaltation) or sad (till to depression) or indifferent. In the normality psychic conditions, mood's tone should be constantly oriented towards a very moderate optimism, while in other extreme cases, in which it oscillates in a rapid manner or towards extremes of the axis pleasure-displeasure, then pathological conditions arise. Finally, mood's tone is strictly related to somatic coenaesthesia, i.e., to that subjective sense of wellness or malaise continuously perceived by an individual (De Giacomo 1972, Cap. 1).

Affectivity, however, plays a truly fundamental role for the basilar normal development of human psyche since childhood (which is a crucial and decisive period of the human life and its psychic development), as witnessed by the various psychiatric examinations of the life of criminals in which a serious affectivity lack in childhood is a constant datum [START_REF] Andreoli | Il lato oscuro. I grandi delitti del Novecento[END_REF][START_REF] Bizzarri | Criminali o folli: nel labirinto della perizia psichiatrica[END_REF]. On the other hand, some recent psychiatric researches (related to the so-called mood spectrum model) have pointed out the basic recurrence of mood illnesses in many other psychiatric disorders [START_REF] Cassano | A spectrum model for mood disorders: a useful approach in clinical psychiatry in search of an assessment methodology[END_REF]Placidi et al., 1993).

The psychoanalytic perspective. A first step: the notion of drive and its structure

From a historical viewpoint, Freudian psychoanalysis has been the first psychological trend to have pointed out the relevance of affectivity for all the human psychic life. Further, it has worked out a framework within which to formalize affectivity, so orthodox psychoanalysis is the most suitable psychological trend able to pursue this aim. Freud, at first, distinguished among instinct, stimulus and drive, in that the former (Instinkt) is referred to a rigid and hereditarily predisposed behaviour of animals, predetermined in its development as well as adapted to its object, while the latter is not so rigidly determined, as well as is much more psychically oriented (and not only somatically acted 7 The personality's construct comprehends all the outcomes of the interactions of an individual with the general world (this last understood in its broadest sense) in which he or she lives, whose psyche is meant as an integration of all its basic psychic components, that is to say, noetic, affective and volitional spheres, which are closely related to each other. We have therefore the following inclusions of psychological constructs: temperament character personality, with the first genetically (or phylogenetically) inherited, the second ontogenetically determined and, finally, the third epiontogenetically outlined.

to satisfy immediately a vital need); finally, the drive (Trieb) differs from the stimulus as the former springs out internally, acts constantly as an internal force and the individual cannot escape from it, differently from an external stimulus which may be avoided. Hence, the drive is a basic psychic component producing an excitation state which pushes individual towards action according to a genetically determined way yet liablethanks to its structure and functionto be modified in dependence on the environment and the own lived experience [START_REF] Galimberti | Nuovo Dizionario di Psicologia, Psichiatria, Psicoanalisi, Neuroscienze[END_REF][START_REF] Laplanche | The language of psycho-analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Lis | Breve dizionario di psicoanalisi[END_REF].

Freud, in his dual theory of drives, was interested in the basic distinction first between sexual drive and self-preservation drive (exemplified by the basic opposition "love-hunger"), then between sexual drive and aggressive drive (exemplified by the basic opposition "love-destruction"), finally included in the wider dualism Eros-Thanatos. Sexual drive provides the erotic component of mental activity, while aggressive drive provides the mere destructive component of it. These two basic, antithetic forms of psychic energy (i.e., sexual and aggressive) may be fused or amalgamated together, to give rise the rich variety of the psychic life of human being, according to a ratio established by the so-called defence mechanisms of the Ego, within a model of human psyche. Freud also considered the notion of partial drive in reference to the polymorphic nature of sexual drive mainly having an early somatic origin and basically linked to self-preservation drive by anaclisis, becoming independent only in the next psychic development of each individual. The drive, as the etymology of Trieb explains, refers to the basic dynamicity of the internal excitations from which it springs out and from which the individual cannot without do (differently from external excitations, or stimuli, which may be neglected); they are the functional foundations of psychic life of every individual, and have a somatic origin said to be their source (exogenous zone) by Freud (from about 1905 onwards). By an energetic constancy principle, such internal excitations should be discharged, so drive is also characterizedaccording to Freudby both an aim and an object, the former being the final entity towards which drive has been addressed or directed to reduce excitation, while the latter is the way or fashion with which such an aim is reached; finally, the unavoidable tendency of drive towards the discharge of its excitation state, is said to beeven according to Freudits push (or boost) which is the active counterpart of the drive, that is, what gives dynamicity to it [START_REF] Galimberti | Nuovo Dizionario di Psicologia, Psichiatria, Psicoanalisi, Neuroscienze[END_REF][START_REF] Laplanche | The language of psycho-analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Lis | Breve dizionario di psicoanalisi[END_REF][START_REF] Petrini | Dizionario di psicoanalisi. Con elementi di psichiatria psicodinamica e psicologia psicodinamica[END_REF].

Therefore, any drive has four main features, source, push, object and aim, which overall may be schematically representedin their dynamicityas follows:

(1) that is, the somatic excitation, originated in a certain exogenous zone (source), due to its intrinsic dynamical nature (push), tends to be satisfied (or annulled) reaching an aim with a modality given by the object has been chosen, which may be into the object itself. This latter may be a person or a real as well as a phantasmatic thing; it is the most variable element of a drive. The push is the last element charactering drive considered by Freud, as closely related to its basic motor nature finalized to reach an aim, so push characterizes the action tendency of a drive, that is, its intrinsic dynamicity, characterizing human activity in its broadest sense [START_REF] Barale | Psiche. Dizionario storico di psicologia, psichiatria, psicoanalisi, neuroscienze. 2 voll[END_REF][START_REF] Laplanche | The language of psycho-analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Lis | Breve dizionario di psicoanalisi[END_REF][START_REF] Petrini | Dizionario di psicoanalisi. Con elementi di psichiatria psicodinamica e psicologia psicodinamica[END_REF].

The drive is, therefore, the psychic referent (or expression) of an endosomatic excitation 8 , to be precise, its psychic representative. Freud considered drive as a concept relying between the somatic and the psychic, in the sense that it springs out from a somatic excitation (which is its source) and is turned towards the psychic horizon (comprehending its aim). So, with its 1915 fundamental theory of drives, Freud conceived an original relationship between soma and psyche, not ruled according to a parallel or a causal pattern, but rather conceived as analogous to the (commercial) relationship that holds between mandatory and its representative or, in structural linguistic sense, between signified and signifier, a pattern, this latter, which will be later retaken by Jacque Lacan. In any case, this last analogy, above all from the linguistic perspective, should be meant in a two-way fashion, that is to say, when mandatory is the endosomatic excitation (Reiz), then drive plays the role of psychic representative, while, vice versa, when the mandatory is the drive (Trieb) then the corresponding psychic representative (Triebrepräsentant) is also named the ideational representative (Vorstellungrepräsentant), on its turn said to be the psychic representative (psychischer Repräsentanz) when the above ideational representative is considered together the corresponding amount (or quote) of affect (Affektbetrag) that invests it [START_REF] Galimberti | Nuovo Dizionario di Psicologia, Psichiatria, Psicoanalisi, Neuroscienze[END_REF][START_REF] Laplanche | The language of psycho-analysis[END_REF].

Therefore, in this last case, the drive is formally given by the pair , where is the ideational representative of , while is the amount (or quote) of affect associated to by means of a basic process called cathexis which therefore operates functionally as . In the elements of the pair , we intentionally have avoided to indicate, as an index, the related drive , for the following reasons: when the two basic psychic mechanisms of repression and suppression operate on a drive , then operates (unawares) on removing it into the unconsciousand not on , while operates (knowingly) on removing it into the preconscious-conscious zone -or into the Egoand not on . Hence, schematically, and functionally operate as follows -

(2)

through the contemporary action of the defence mechanisms of the Ego, , with respectively -

for every drive . Once , the ideational representation is subject or undergo to unconscious mechanisms, among which are condensation, displacement, fixation and drive transfers (thank to which certain unconscious equivalences are possible among different objects, like among penis, money, faeces, child, gift 9 ). Further, once leaves representation (by means of a psychic mechanism said to be decathexis), it assumes, as , a certain psychic autonomy which allows to cathexis again (alsobut not only 10through that particular psychic 8 The representation is also what has been transcribed into mnemic systems (memory), that is to is, it is closely related to the so-called engram [START_REF] Galimberti | Nuovo Dizionario di Psicologia, Psichiatria, Psicoanalisi, Neuroscienze[END_REF]). 9 Cf. (Barale et al. 2009, Vol. II, pp. 905-909). 10 As has been said in the previous section, quote of affect may undergo the following chief mechanisms: i) conversion of affects; ii) displacement of affect; iii) transformation of affect. Moreover, there exist four main modalities with which cathexis acts, namely: i) acathexis; ii) undercathexis; iii) overcathexis; iv) decathexis; v) countercathexis [START_REF] Galimberti | Nuovo Dizionario di Psicologia, Psichiatria, Psicoanalisi, Neuroscienze[END_REF]. mechanism called anticathexis) other ideational representatives : so, for example, in obsessive neuroses, as Freud stated, the quote of affect is displaced from the original traumatic event to another meaningless11 representation (instance of displacement of the affect), in the hysteria, such an amount of affect is transformed in somatic energy (instance of transformation of the affect) and associated with a new ideational representative linked to a certain somatic zone or function, while in anxiety neuroses or in melancholy, the affect quote is converted in anguish (instance of conversion of the affect) [START_REF] Galimberti | Nuovo Dizionario di Psicologia, Psichiatria, Psicoanalisi, Neuroscienze[END_REF][START_REF] Laplanche | The language of psycho-analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Petrini | Dizionario di psicoanalisi. Con elementi di psichiatria psicodinamica e psicologia psicodinamica[END_REF].

Freud attributes to the affect amount also a qualitative feature besides to a quantitative one, just given by its quote, so he speaks of affect just in reference to such a qualitative nature, to which is closely associated the quote of affect, related to the quantitative aspect. Further, we highlight again that amount of affect relies on preconscious-conscious zone through suppression mechanism, while ideational representation is unconscious by repression. Affect played a fundamental role in Freudian works since the early Studies on hysteria (done with Josef Breuer in 1895) in which a net distinction between affect and representation became clear to Freud. In 1915, Freud was already aware that affect has both a qualitative fashion (related to subjective emotional resonance) and a quantitative one linked to drive energy thanks to which cathexis and other energetic processes may take place. The latter undergoes to suppression and does not have an autonomous existence, differently from representationwhich has, after repression, an own autonomous (unconscious) existencebut a potentiality to be cathexed again or transformed into another type of affect, above all in anguish [START_REF] Laplanche | The language of psycho-analysis[END_REF].

In a next paper, we shall try to work out a more coherent framework in which to unify the many notions formally exposed above on drive, its main structure and functions, better suitable to further formalization processes and computational implementation attempts.

See next section for a deepening of this notion and the related concepts.

The close relation between basis of mood and background of mood, with the high variability of the latter, is also responsible of a certain variability in the modulation of affectivity of each individual(Giberti & Rossi 1996, Cap. 2, § V).

That is, oriented towards an object (thing, person, situation, aim, etc.).

This remark highlights the notable fact for which affectivity supports symbolic function. Indeed, when there not exist abstract ideas, the related feelings cannot either exist. So, when an individual undergoes to a mental decline (due to various reasons, neurological, environmental, social-cultural, etc.), the first feeling lost are just the higher ones, like the ethical and spiritual ones(De Giacomo 1972, Cap. 1). This also agrees with the remarkable role played by affectivity in learning, in that, being motor ability, ideational field and affectivity the main three contexts in which learning develops, we deduce that affectivity plays a crucial role in learning(Delay & Pichot 1965, Cap. VII, § 3), a stance claimed above all by psychoanalysis (which put affectivity at the basis of fundamental psychic structuration as defence mechanisms arise to face impelling anguish). For instance, affective interferences (like rapid oscillations of mood) hinder learning(Mastrangelo 1979, Cap. 8). However, many psychologists have claimed the basic need to study further intertwinements between emotion and cognition(Miller 1993, Ch. 4, § 7.2), for the fundamental importance of affectivity for human psyche and its development[START_REF] Revers | Sentimento, volontà, personalità[END_REF]).

So acquiring ever more high feelings, like ethical, social, political, religious, and cultural ones(De Giacomo 1972, Cap. 1).

The senselessness of this new representation is the result of the attempt to nullify the unbearable affect of the primary, first representation whose quote of affect is now displaced to such a second, final representation.