Les enjeux de la comparaison dans la méthode d’autoconfrontation croisée issue de la clinique de l’activité

This article is based on an intervention research conducted with French primary school principals, within the framework of a clinical approach to activity. The objective is twofold: on the one hand, to support the development of the subjective relationship these professionals maintain with their work activity; on the other hand, to produce knowledge about the processes involved in this development. The intervention specifically draws on the method of cross self-confrontation (ACC), which consists in confronting a principal with video recordings of their own activity in the presence of a peer, within a dialogical framework that encourages the verbalization and confrontation of lived experience. The article focuses more precisely on analysing the role of comparison in this method. The analysis of verbatim excerpts from an ACC interview between two principals highlights that comparison - of ways of doing, speaking, or thinking about the activity - fosters the emergence of new meanings, triggers awareness, and opens up possibilities for transforming the activity.