Neoliberalism, Pedagogy and Human Development ― Exploring Time, Mediation and Collectivity in Contemporary Schools

In most Western developed countries, adult life is increasingly organized on the basis of short-term work contracts and reduced social security funds. In this context it seems that producing efficient job-seekers and employees becomes the main aim of educational programs for the next generation. Through case studies of young people from urban and countryside marginalized populations in Germany, USA and Brazil, this book investigates emerging educational practices and takes a critical stance towards what can be seen as neoliberal educational politics. It investigates how mediating devices such as CVs, school reports, school files, photos and narratives shape the ways in which those marginalized students reflect about their past as well as imagine their future. By building on process philosophy and time theory, post-structuralism, as well as on Vygotsky's psychological theory, the analysis differentiates between two discrete modes of human development: development of concrete skills (potential development) and development of new societal relations (virtual development, which is at the same time individual and collective). The book outlines an innovative relational account of learning and human development which can prove of particular importance for the education of marginalized students in today's globalized world.

Dr. Michalis Kontopodis studied psychology in Greece, France, Poland and Germany and completed his PhD at the Faculty of Education and Psychology of Free University Berlin, Germany. He worked at Humboldt University Berlin from 2007 to 2010, and was a visiting scholar at City University New York and at New York University in 2009. He was also invited as a visiting professor at Pontificia Universidade Catolica de Sao Paolo, and at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2010. He works as an assistant professor at the Department of Research & Theory in Education, VU University of Amsterdam and has also been external coordinator of the Summer University in Cultural-Historical Psychology at Moscow State University of Psychology and Education since 2010.

His research interests concern marginalization, immigration, urban and countryside education, neoliberalism and biopedagogies, as well as institutional memory and digital media. His publications include special issues of the journals Outlines: Critical Practice Studies; Memory Studies; Science, Technology & Human Values and ETHOS, as well as three co-edited books, most importantly Children, Development and Education: Cultural, Historical, Anthropological Perspectives, with Springer (2011, co-edited with C. Wulf & B. Fichtner). Further information is provided at http://mkontopodis.wordpress.com/.