In France, the institutional disposals of orientation were conceived in the late 1920's, to place the pupils whose the training destiny was industrial apprenticeship. But the increasing role of psychology, then the impact of psychoanalysis, have changed the ideas on orientation, and have promoted the difference between the schooling orientation - managed by the Conseillers d'Orientation- PSYchologues - and the professional one - managed by other organizations, and above all by the National Agency of Employment. A third period of "orientative policies" is now beginning, with the current development of an informative market about orientation, and the central role of the rhetoric about the "long-life training". In this paper, I will try to achieve a double aim. On one hand, I will clarify and comment the changing referential of orientation in educational policies. For that, I will at first analyze the history of a central institution : the INETOP (Institut National d'Etude du Travail et d'Orientation Professionnelle), which is actually responsible of the training of the CO-PSYs. Secondly, I will expose the results of an inquiry about the professionalization/deprofessionalization of the CO-PSYs, supported by a questionnary, a long-time and situated observation of their regular activities in four upper- secondary schools and in the Centre d'Information et d'Orientation they're linked with, and a sery of qualitative interviews. I will compare the results of this inquiry with the theoretical point of view of Friedson about "the third logic".On the other hand, I will show how the scholar establishments centralize several "philosophies of orientation" : each category of educative agents tries to promote its, but on what motives and with what effects on the scholar fluxes, and on the "reputation" of the establishment concerned ? To answer to these questions, I will examine, through an ethnographic material, the relations between the different agents during the regular collective process of orientation (during the "conseils de classe" and the "commissions d'appel"). An "ecology of professions" (A.Abbott) will be useful to understand the local challenges, and to link them with the recent contesting social movement (December 2003) in the field of education in France.