Chair: Valentina D' Ascanio, University of 'Tor Vergata' Rome, Italy
Local Chair: Maren Elfert, King’s College London, United Kingdom
From a historical perspective, education always played a particular role in the cultivation of human beings and their socialization into civil life. In every national context, the ongoing balance - and tension - between the individual and social dimensions of education have shaped particular configurations of citizenship in accordance with national values and interests. Educational systems have had to maintain a delicate equilibrium between the specific demands of states and a broader range of emancipatory ends for all humankind. As this equilibrium becomes more fragile, influential supra-national, for-profit, non-governmental and corporate organizations find new ways to promote their own values and interests about the role and purposes of education.
The rise of new forms of control and governance, and the push for performativity, efficiency and accountability in education have compromised the emancipatory ideal of education and its capacity to combat social fragmentation and promote spaces for dialogue and communication in our society characterized by plurality. What might the common good look like in the future as new actors and ideologies gain a deeper foothold in the life of education and the formation of the human?
The working group is focused on a critical analysis of these changes and will encourage contributions that bring historical, philosophical and political perspectives to the discussion. It is particularly interested in contributions that explore the emerging pressures and constraints that educational systems are struggling with, especially how the individual and social dimensions of education are being reframed by new political demands, the growing presence of new and emerging actors in education and social pressures of late modernity. Relevant questions include the following:
- How can we rethink our longue durée educational ideals in ways that can pave the way to the future and respond to the precarity of our historical juncture? In that regard, how do we look back at the legacy and usefulness of past future-oriented visions and projects in education?
- What is the space for critical thinking in education given the growing influence of regimes of governance, control and censorship, and how do these shape the individual and social aims of education?
- How can we think about the idea of citizenship, considering the new and emerging context of education and the growing role of new actors in shaping definitions of the educated person and the aims of civil life?
- What perspectives can we imagine for a new pact between educational systems and society? How are certain actors (such as non-state actors, international organizations, corporate and philanthropic actors) in education shaping the educational commons? What roles can activist groups and social movements play?
- Is it still possible to strike a fruitful balance between the pragmatic purposes of education, such as its role in meeting labour market demands, and educators’ commitment to equality, social justice and community building? Can regimes of control overcome the tensions within these two pillars or must they, necessarily, deepen them? What does this mean for the commons?