Neoliberalism, globalization agendas and banking educational policy : is popular education an answer?

Abstract

Discussing the tensions between the global and the local, this paper offers a description of cosmopolitan and local competing globalization agendas. Three agendas, as ideal types, are highlighted: the Hyper-Globalizers, Skeptics and Transformationists. After explaining the competing agendas for globalization and some of their potential impacts in education, three main claims are made in this paper. The first one is that the dominant technocratic rationale in policy making, which is part and parcel of a neoliberal regime, constitutes a form of banking education so brilliantly criticized by Paulo Freire. This technocratic rationality is based on instrumental rationality discussed by Max Weber, Herbert Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas. A second claim is that there is a great potential for challenging the intellectual narratives and praxis of neoliberal education in the new approach of a global citizenship education portrayed in the First Global Educational Initiative announced by the U.N. General Secretary and currently being implemented by UNESCO. The final claim is a question: could popular education be an answer to the growing inequality, poverty, and lack of solidarity in the contemporary world? The basic premise of this paper is that neoliberalism, emerging as the dominant face of globalization may be conducive to what has been termed banking education. The distinguished tradition of popular education in Latin America is considered as a possible alternative.