The Future of Education

In a number of more recent studies, it has been shown that educational policies in Sweden since the 1970s demonstrate an increasingly present-oriented focus. As I have argued elsewhere, this ties in with what the French historian François Hartog refers to as the emergence of a presentist regime of historicity. Against this backcloth, with Sweden serving as an illustrating example, the purpose of my paper is twofold; firstly, it serves to elaborate on how this presentist temporal logic in educational policies appears to be entwined with a specific form of, speaking with the French proto-sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville, imaginary equality. Arguing that it is motivated to conceive of the two tendencies – the presentist regime of historicity as well as the mentioned form of equality – as one politico-temporal problem, I maintain that the educational policies that have emerged since the 1970s have contributed to the sapping of democracy as a political project, i.e. as a political regime aiming at the realisation of political freedom. Against this backdrop, the second purpose is to delineate a politically more fecund way to envision educational equality. I argue that Hannah Arendt’s reflections on the role of education and her idea of the world provide a fruitful source of inspiration for rethinking and tackling the initially outlined problem in a way that calls into question the tenacious and with modernity concomitant division of traditionalism and progressivism in educational thought. My presentation will unfold in two parts: in the first part, I expound in which sense the imaginary equality has bolstered the emergence of a presentist temporal order, as well as the political contradictions that these energies have engendered. In the second part, the deadlock outlined in the first part is addressed by mobilising Arendt’s educational and political thought. I will emphasise in particular how her idea of the world opens up for a more tenable way to envision equality, based on an in time extended idea of freedom. As such, I contend that it offers a politically more tenable education for the future than the currently dominating presentist-inducing equality.

Keywords: Presentism, Imaginary Equality, Politico-Temporal, World;