"The way to freedom" in/for education

pp. 297-319

in: Wolff-Michael Roth, Alfredo Jornet, Understanding educational psychology, Berlin, Springer, 2017

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