“The Way to Freedom” in/for Education

Abstract

The chapter revisits the reported topics and findings and places them in the context of current discussions of educational practice and assessment. We re-situate the issues discussed in the context of educational practice and assessment and conduct a genetic and critical analysis of the place of schooling in society and of society in schooling. We begin our analysis by defining a notion of (learning) context that allows positioning the Spinozist perspective with respect to other competing approaches. This notion of context does not involve a contrast between two different things (substances) but constitutes a generative process that re/produces persons and objects/facts. Against this background, we examine schooling as a societal product and reproduction that objectifies a dualist epistemology, in which issues of inequality emerge both as objective and subjective phenomena. Vygotsky’s non-dualist, Spinozist approach offers an alternative epistemology for educational practice, one in which the focus on individual achievement and hegemonic reproduction is substituted by the values of freedom and activism.