Panel C.03 — Education as Commons. Democratic Values, Social Justice and Inclusion in Education
Convenors Gianna Cappello (University of Palermo, Italy); Marianna Siino (University of Palermo, Italy)
Keywords educational commons, commodification, inclusion, participation
To rethink today education as commons (i.e. educational commons) implies the attempt to reverse contemporary neoliberal processes of enclosure and commodification of education and radically transform the substance of teaching, learning, research, and institutions into a common good that nurtures openness, inclusion, direct engagement in public and collective life, autonomy and self-reliance (Pechtelidis & Kioupkiolis 2020). As such, education as commons is intrinsically linked to the various dimensions of identity formation in political, cultural, and economic life rather than simply in the transmission of formal knowledge. It also questions how citizenship education has been traditionally defined and enacted (Dardot & Laval, 2014). This is the case especially in formal educational contexts where agendas and processes are often pre-established according to a dominant narrative that casts children’s participation in developmental terms of what is lacking and yet-to-be achieved by them. An approach that disregards their actual activities as citizens in the present and models their participation on adult-driven conceptions of voice and democracy. In this path to education as commons, the notion of “subjectification” takes precedence over “socialization” (Biesta 2010, 2011), resituating children as agents not engaged in passive absorption but in active adaptive construction. Education as commons implies a more cooperative and egalitarian mode of governance, participation and citizenship and the turning of learning and governance processes into a collective good that is co-produced by all community members.
Building on the notion of education as commons (or educational commons), this panel will host presentations dealing with one of the following sub-topics:
● School and social inclusion
● Effects of New Public Management on research and teaching in Higher Education
● Education as commons in formal, non-formal and informal education
● School-family relationships and conflicts
● The commodification of career guidance and orientation
● The platformisation and digital commodification of education
● School governance and policies
● The school and the reproduction of social and gender inequalities
● Actions and proposals for imagining new ways of conceiving and organizing educational spaces, subjects, and knowledge in formal and non formal education