The article studies the hypothesis that there is a desire for control at the heart of every pedagogical relationship and that the controlling relation, whatever form it may take, represents a true defensive formation, masking the lack reveal by the encounter with the other. Within this scenario, one finds the rules common to every controlling relationship: the instrumentalization of the other and the impossibility, for the latter, of breaking out of the cycle of an exchange in which he gives more than he gets, such rupture being constructed as something unjustifiable, necessitating the use of force, an act of rebellion or violence. How do adolescents remain desiring subjects at school ? How do they escape from the controlling relation ? In the ambivalent relationship that they construct with authority, what strategies do they employ ? This investigation joins philosophical inquiry with a sociological viewpoint.

Adolescence, 2009, T. 27, n°2, pp. 447-459.