L’article combine ethnographie et histoire en s’appuyant sur les textes qui ont successivement encadré la formation et sur des entretiens réalisés avec des aides-soignantes de différentes générations, interrogées à l’occasion d’enquêtes successives. The title of nursing assistant was first created to reclassify working personnel in a period of restricted access to the nursing profession. The creation of a theoretical and practical training program leading to a certificate of competence contributed to its perpetuation. This initially minimal training program has evolved and is now ratified by a state diploma, combined with a list of specific skills. From the 1970s, nurse’s aide training was no longer a mere instrument for the promotion of the least qualified hospital personnel. It now also includes students whose training is in line with the educational career followed by other students of diverse professional experience. How has this training been able to organise so as to cope with the evolution of these multiple publics who hope both for professional training and a career, some of whom have academic credentials while others have professional experience ? The article combines ethnography and history based on successive texts which have organised professional training and on interviews with nursing assistants from different generations, interviewed on the occasion of successive surveys.