Challenging the neoliberal view of education: the Center for Ecoliteracy as a transformative educational practice

摘要

The neoliberal rationality of recent decades has, as one of its maxims, that of extending market logic to the rest of social dimensions on the basis of competition. However, the spreading of this neoliberal drug' requires profound political reforms. It calls for a cultural engineering of the public sector which has been fostered by the New Public Management (NPM). This form of governmentality controls current power relations and gives a new meaning to the management of public services, including the educational sector. In this paper, we maintain that there are spaces of resistance' against the neoliberal educational rationality. We analyse the Center for Ecoliteracy (CFE) as a transformative experience which integrates a holistic perspective into educational practice. We compare the principles of the NPM with those of the CFE, showing that there are more humanistic approaches to education which aim to teach students the need to live in sustainable communities.