Pedagogies of the common world: inclusion and sustainability beyond the logic of progress?

Abstract

In contemporary educational theory and philosophy, an influential interpretation argues that European educational policies are dominated by the “discourse of learning.” The latter is problematized from at least two perspectives: on the one hand, there is the appeal to an ‘updated’ return to the classic traditions; on the other, the emphasis is upon world-centred education and the idea of the creation of a common world, by countering learnification as arguably vitiated by hyper-individualism and an instrumentalization of education.

This contribution focuses on the second perspective by suggesting that it objects to the vocabulary of “progress” in education but it does it with a democratic rather than reactionary outlook. After describing the main theoretical axes of this perspective, the focus will be on how far the themes of inclusion and sustainability—which are at the very core of the contemporary European documents—can be framed in terms of this “pedagogy of the common world.”