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‪The relationship between the main union of French secondary school teachers and academic research in the field of education over the last fifty years or so has been a reflection of the changes in its positioning as a trade union and the shifting of major points of view in the debate on education. At first enthused by the perspectives of transforming the school system, the SNES used them in a pedagogical and polemical way to impose its propositions in this debate. Then, partially overtaken by the liberal twisting of critical academic research, it distanced itself from researchers as the union has often seen them as mere instruments of the power in place. It eventually came to develop, in an independent way, research that also questions the specificity of working as a teacher in a constantly shifting society of workers.‪