The Educational is Political

Abstract

Many approaches to political education take it to involve the construction of particular sections of the curriculum in which political matters are addressed-named perhaps "civics" or "citizenship education". While these approaches have often been benefi cial, they are all also problematic and controversial in some degree. Moreover, it is sometimes said that political education operates across a wide range of what happens in educational institutions-for example, in the ways of behaving that are promoted inside and outside the classroom, in the general ethos of the school or college, and through its marking of significant dates or events. The approach adopted in this paper takes a more radical line, however, in that it resists the restriction of the political that these approaches assume. This is not to argue for the mobilization of schools and other educational institutions as instruments of politics. It is rather to try to show that matters of political signifi cance are pervasive in the curriculum. The substance of the curriculum is an expression of what the culture takes to be important and of the values that the culture wishes to pass on. The fostering of those values must have some eff ect on the kind of society that is then promoted, and indeed this must be inherent in the aims of education.

Post-Critique, Politics, and the Political in Educational Philosophy

“…What does it mean for our work to consider the relationship between the educational and the political more broadly rather than restricting our articulation of new approaches to a binary of school education and a sociological conception of politics? (For one possible answer see Standish, 2019).…”