Pedagogie et utopie: l’alliance de l’esperance

Abstract

This article deals with the difficult relationship between politics and pedagogy. When we look at the results of educational policies, we risk losing all hope. The lack of a vision entails the risk of accepting that the discourse on education is reduced to specialized, aseptic and disengaged arguments, based on rational criteria that do not take into account social projects. And yet, decisions are still made on the basis of indi-cators of evaluation, performance, competence, effectiveness, quality, all at the expense of a reflection cantered on the social and political dimensions of the educational act and its political importance. There are, however, models capable of re-establishing the relationship between pedagogy and politics, and of interpreting education in terms of social commitment. All the theoretical and practical work of Paulo Freire warns us against the depoliticization of educational thought and pedagogical reflection. Education must be understood as a project of liberation because pedagogy must lead to the realization of civil and demo-cratic values. It is necessary to renew and re-elaborate an educational concept capable of combining the utopian dimension of education and reawakening the utopian dimension of political commitment starting from that Pedagogy of hope that invoked by Paulo Freire. The utopia can be created by actual educational actions, specific actions that force us to accept compromises on the ethical, social and political level and that make us rethink the means that guide our practical action and our scientific reflection.