Educational Equality: A Politico‐Temporal Approach

Abstract

In a number of more recent studies, it has been argued that an increasingly presentistic temporal regime has emerged in educational politics since the 1970s. Against this backdrop, with Sweden as an exemplar, the purpose of this study is twofold. Firstly, it serves to elaborate on how this presentist temporal logic in the educational field appears to be entwined with a specific form of equality, which I will refer to as imaginary equality. Arguing that it is motivated to conceive of these two-the tendency of presentism and the imaginary equality-as one problem complex, I maintain that the politico-temporal order that has emerged since the 1970s runs counter to democracy as a regime for enhancing political freedom. In light of this, the second purpose is to delineate a politically more dynamic way to tackle education as a politico-temporal challenge. I argue that Hannah Arendt's reflections on the role of education and her idea of the world offer ways to address the problem which calls into question the tenacious and with modernity concomitant division between traditionalism and progressivism. I maintain that we, by cutting across this division, open up for more viable ways of tackling education as a politico-temporal challenge.A crisis forces us back to the questions themselves and requires from us either new or old answers on which we ordinarily rely without even realising they were originally answers to questions. A crisis becomes a disaster only when we respond to it with preformed judgements, that is, with prejudices. Such an attitude not only sharpens the crisis but makes us forfeit the experience of reality and the opportunity for reflection it provides.