EDUCATIONAL SELF-MANAGEMENT and LIBERAL GOVERNMENTALITY as an EMERGENCY AREA of POPULAR EDUCATION

Abstract

This article seeks to develop a thesis which has been worked on in the research project: “Popular education. Confluences theoretical and political trips” which in turn formed part of the macro-project ‘Paradigms and concepts of education in Colombia.’ It thus firstly outlines the problem: popular education, beyond questions of validity or the appropriateness of its proponents, was part of a historical change in the way in which we are governed which is bringing us to educational self-management. Following this, the article identifies four distinct dynamics of the emergency area of socalled liberal governmentality: 1. The development of a new world, 2. Official discourses, 3. Alternative discourses, 4. Religious discourse. As a result of these movements, the idea of self-management has become legitimate and it is here described as part of what we call post-revolutionary effects, which materialize in the human rights movement and the culturalist perspective and in the so-called cognitive capitalism. The conclusion reached in this article is that school and formal education are today subject to pressure to make their structures more flexible and to broaden their traditional boundaries, creating a maladjustment which affects young people, teachers and traditional protagonists within educational institutions. To this end, we seek to problematize our present and leave open questions about the origin of pedagogical truths, which today seem so obvious.