The Book School and Democracy, Fortieth Year

Abstract

Considering that the focus is on the 40th anniversary of the book School and Democracy, therefore drawing attention to 1983, the year of its release, the article begins in a colloquial tone, explaining how the book's theme emerged. Next, the historical contribution and new challenges are exposed, a moment in which we seek to answer the question: to what extent is a revolutionary education possible, from which an indication is given about the historical contribution resulting from the controversy opened by the book, concluding with consideration of new challenges. The article therefore consists of the following topics:Introduction. Using the “theory of the curvature of the stick”, which clarifies the context in which the theme of the book emerged and how it was composed, indicating the origin of the four chapters that constitute it; 1. Is a revolutionary pedagogy possible? in which it is discussed whether and under what conditions the revolutionary attribute can be attributed to pedagogy; 2. The historical contribution of the book School and Democracy, a moment in which it is shown that the main contribution of the book was to pave the way for the elaboration of a theory of emancipatory critical education based on historical-dialectical materialism which, from the following year (1984 ), received the name historical-critical pedagogy; 3. Current challenges, which examine the conditions resulting from the structural crisis of the current social form, whose determinations impose challenges that historical-critical pedagogy needs to explain and face; Conclusion: challenges in the educational field. Having indicated the general challenges, by way of conclusion, we address the challenges that the perspective opened by the book School and Democracy, represented by historical-critical pedagogy, needs to face in the specific field of education.