The role of education in the discourses of the EU and of alternative schooling institutions

Mehdi Galiere

Abstract


The paper discusses two different approaches to education and the way they are embedded in different discourses on education. The market-oriented approach is compared to the democratic approach. In the paper, the discourse of the European Union is considered as an example of hegemonic neoliberal discourse while the discourse produced by the Summerhill School and the Self-Managed High School of Paris is addressed as a  counterhegemonic discourse. Drawing on Critical Discourse Studies scholars such as Norman Fairclough, and critical pedagogic approaches such as Basil Bernstein’s and Paulo Freire’s, it will be shown that the difference in the ways these institutions represent the social world around them have a strong influence on their discourses on what education is for and should be like. For the European Union, education is a utilitarian means facilitating the adaptation of society to the economic system through the acquisition of predefined skills, while for the democratic approach it is rather a practice developing common decision-making and empowerment through an understanding of the world as a whole.


Keywords


education, critical pedagogy, critical discourse analysis, democratic education, Europe 2020.

Full Text:

PDF

References


Accardo, A. (2003). Le dehors & le dedans. Revue Agone. Histoire, Politique & Sociologie, 29-30, 217-222.

Behrent, M. (2012). Literacy and Revolution. In J. Bale, S. Knopp, A. Sanchez, B. Bigelow, & B. Jones (Eds.), Education and Capitalism: Struggles for Learning and Liberation (pp. 217-242). Chicago: Haymarket Books.

Bernstein, B. (2008). The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse. Vol. 4. Class, Codes and Control. London: Routledge.

Birdsong, D. (1992). Ultimate Attainment in Second Language Acquisition. Language, 68(4), 706.

Engels, F. (1970). Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

European Commission. 2010. EUROPE 2020. A Strategy for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth. Brussels: European Commission. Retrieved August 26, 2019, from http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2010:2020:FIN:EN:PDF.

European Commission. (2012a). Language Competences for Employability, Mobility and Growth. Strasbourg: European Commission. Retrieved August 26, 2019, from http://ec.europa.eu/education/news/rethinking/sw372_en.pdf.

European Commission. (2012b). Rethinking Education:Investing in Skills for Better Socio-Economic Outcomes. Strasbourg: European Commission. Retrieved August 26, 2019, from http://ec.europa.eu/education/news/rethinking/com669_en.pdf.

European Commission. (2013). General Policy Framework. Retrieved April 26, 2019, http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/top_layer/.

Fairclough, N. (Ed.). (1992). Critical Language Awareness. London: Longman.

Fairclough, N. (2003). Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge.

Fairclough, N. (2011). Social Transformation and Learning. In R. Rogers (Ed.), An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education (pp. 120-127). London: Routledge.

Freire, P. (1968). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. (Myra Bergman Ramos, Trans.). London: Penguin.

Freire, P. (1970). Cultural Action for Freedom. Cambridge: Harvard Education Press.

Gadotti, M. (1994). Reading Paulo Freire. New York, NY: State University of New York Press.

Graff, H. J. (1991). The Literacy Myth: Cultural Integration and Social Structure in the Nineteeth Century. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Hallgatói Hálózat, Hálózat a Tanszabadságért, and Az Oktatói Hálózat. 2013. Levél Az Uniós Oktatási Biztoshoz És Hoffmann Rózsához. Hallgatói Hálózat. Retieved March 3, 2019, from http://hallgatoihalozat.blog.hu/2012/02/28/level_az_unios_oktatasi_biztoshoz_es_hoffmann_rozsahoz.

Harvey, D. (1992). The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

Horton, M., & Freire, P. (1990). We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change. In B. Bell, J. Gaventa, & J. Peters (Eds.), Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Johnson, A., & Terzakis, E. (2012). Pedagogy and Revolution: Reading Freire in Context. In J. Bale, S. Knopp, A. Sanchez, B. Bigelow, & B. Jones (Eds.), Education and Capitalism: Struggles for Learning and Liberation (pp. 187-210). Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.

Knopp, S. (2012). Schools, Marxism and Liberation. In J. Bale, S. Knopp, A. Sanchez, B. Bigelow, & B. Jones (Eds.), Education and Capitalism: Struggles for Learning and Liberation (pp. 9-39). Chicago IL: Haymarket Books.

Kozol, J. (1978). Children of the Revolution: A Yankee Teacher in the Cuban Schools. New York, NY: Delacorte Press.

Legros, B., & Delplanque, J. N. (2009). L’enseignement Face À L’urgence Écologique. Brussels: Les Editions Aden.

Lycée Autogéré de Paris. (2009). Projet D’établissement 2009/2010. Retrieved May 11, 2013, from http://www.l-a-p.org/IMG/doc/Projet_2009-2010_.doc.

Lycée Autogéré de Paris. (2012). Une Fabrique de Libertés : Le Lycée Autogéré de Paris. Paris: Editions REPAS.

Summerhill School. (2013). Introduction to Summerhill. Retrieved April 18, 2019, from http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/pages/index.html.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and Language (2nd rev. ed.) Boston, MA: MIT Press.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2019.43.3.13-23
Date of publication: 2019-11-14 10:37:23
Date of submission: 2019-03-20 13:36:34


Statistics


Total abstract view - 1150
Downloads (from 2020-06-17) - PDF - 618

Indicators



Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2019 Mehdi GALIERE

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.