Paradoxes of authority and education

Authors

  • Paola Dogliotti Casada

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5902/198464443018

Keywords:

Authority, education, paradoxes.

Abstract

This paper develops a series of theoretical reflections about the concept of authority in relation to the changes that have occurred in contemporary societies. Especially, it addresses some paradoxical tensions running through various discourses of authority from common scenes that are installed frequently in educational spaces. It argues that far from currently experiencing a loss of authority, there are changes in the modes of how it is performed, product of changes in the modes of construction of subjectivity. From an open structuralist theoretical perspective, somehow affected by the lacanian psychoanalysis, it is understood that authority itself is a state that exceeds obedience, going beyond the subject’s ability to comply with a set of rules emanating from certain social and historical circumstances. Contemporary modes of performing authority no longer rely so much on the external regulation typical of the discipline but rather, in an appeal to self-regulation and autonomy in which one breathes an atmosphere of greater freedom, but we could also be referring to a “pseudo” freedom or about a fiction of less constraint.

Author Biography

Paola Dogliotti, Casada

Profesora Ayudante del Dpto. de Enseñanza y Aprendizaje del Instituto de Educación de la FHCE (Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación de la Universidad de la Repúlbica (UR) (Uruguai). Integrante de dos líneas de Investigación: 1- Enseñanza Universitaria 2- Políticas Educativas, Curriculum y Enseñanza.

Profesora Asistente del Área Ciencias de la Educación de la Lic. en Educación Física del Instituto Superior de Educación Física (ISEF) de UR-Uruguai

Coordinadora del Posgrado Virtual "Currículum y Prácticas Escolares en Contexto" de FLACSO-Uruguai.

LIc. en Ciencias de la Educación; Maestranda en Enseñanza Universitaria; Posgraduada en Curriculum y Prácticas Escolares en Contexto (Flacso-Argentina). Profesora de Educación Física.

Published

2011-09-06

How to Cite

Dogliotti, P. (2011). Paradoxes of authority and education. Education, 36(2), 177–188. https://doi.org/10.5902/198464443018

Issue

Section

Continuous Demand