A pedagogy against the other? Competitiveness and emulation

Abstract

This article analyzes some of the most important features of contemporary educational policies, especially those that have been introduced by the managerialist reforms of state education. Taking up several works published by the author over the last few years on this theme, he highlights the process of business impregnation of schools, the lato sensu privatization as a reforming principle, the hegemony of education and vocational training, meritocratic practices that promote social inequalities, the crisis of democracy in schools. He concludes that competitiveness exacerbated by entrepreneurial pedagogy and the corresponding practices of emulation in schools may result in a pedagogy against the other and in an alienating and dehumanized education.