Education and the Values of Late Modernity

How are we to account for the specific difficulties faced by social educators in the context of contemporary Western societies? This question is raised by professionals and theoreticians alike, both being confronted with radical changes in social, institutional and familial realities, and we need to integrate this awareness in social work education and training.

We will focus on an ambiguity that results from what can be interpreted, following the hypothesis of Marcel Gauchet, as a radicalization of Modernity. We will argue that this ambiguity has to be clarified, lest it become an oscillation or a contradiction that is detrimental both to professionals and to those they care for.

Consequences of this radicalization are concrete and diverse. Autonomy is estranged from moderation and identified with self-transcendence or the overcoming of one’s internal and external limits; all interactions are supposed to depend on a contract between autonomous, conscious and/or voluntary, subjectivities; and while diversity is praised, individuals are supposed to overcome all particular or communal attachments to identify with universal identity and values.

How do these transformations of autonomy translate into the reality of educational work with children? How do they fit in with an educational work that is consistent with the psychological and anthropological reality of human beings? We are invited to assess the practical consequences of these mutations, regarding the emergence of subjectivity, the educational interaction and diversity, and to critically decide how far this radicalization is to be sustained.