Παιδική ηλικία, παιδί και εκπαίδευση: Παρατηρήσεις για μία σχέση εξουσίας

Abstract

This article is part of the broader –theoretical– study of educational processes and mechanisms. The main aim is to provide a critical –and deconstructive– approach of how these processes and mechanisms may embed –and be embedded in– power relations. I will focus on three interrelated fields: the status of childhood, the category of ‘child’ and the involvement of education with them. More specifically, I attempt a theoretical approach to childhood, not as something natural and neutral, but as a socio-cultural invention and construction and, in particular, as a framework that normalizes children’s bodies and thoughts. In this direction, special emphasis will be placed on how the field –mainly– of developmental psychology seems to provide a scientific context within which the control and regulation of children by adults is assumed and established as necessary. In this context, I will more extensively discuss how the institution of education is related to children, with a central focus on the disciplinary structure of this relationship. The main conclusion of the article is that the agency of children (especially within school) tends to be recognized as bound –and exhausted– in the role of a passive student, i.e. a student who is exposed to and receives answers, rather than asking questions and co-determining the framework of learning processes and content.