THE PEDAGOGICAL ILLUSION. FOR A GENEALOGY AND CRITIQUE OF OUR SCHOOLS GENEALOGY AND CRITIQUE OF OUR SCHOOLS
by Alessandro Simoncini
pp. 143-161 23 (12,1) – January-June 2025 ISSN (online): 2539/2239 ISSN (print): 2389-8232 DOI: https://doi.org/10.14718/SoftPower.2025.12.1.7
Abstract
The text offers a critique of neoliberal pedagogy through a genealogical reconstruction of what is defined here as the “pedagogical illusion”: the illusion that educating individuals to self-govern better guarantees governance. Taking the Italian case as a paradigm, the text shows that this illusion persists through the transition from the school of the Constitution to the school of human capital. However, the forms change: while the former was still pervaded by a disciplinary logic harshly contested by the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the latter tends to become a training ground for competition and a factory for human capital.