Abstract

Public education is not just a way to organise and fund education. It is also the expression of a particular ideal about education and of a particular way to conceive of the relationship between education and society. The ideal of public education sees education as an important dimension of the common good and as an important institution in securing the common good. The common good is never what individuals or particular groups want or desire, but always reaches beyond such particular desires towards that which societies as a whole should consider as desirable. This does, of course, put the common good in tension with the desires of individuals and groups. Neo-liberal modes of governance have, over the past decades, put this particular educational set up under pressure and have, according to some, eroded the very idea of the common good. This set of contributions reflects on this state of affairs, partly through an exploration of the idea of publicness itself – how it can be rearticulated and regained – and partly through reflections on the current state of education in the ‘north’ and the ‘south.’

摘要

公共教育不仅仅是一种组织和资助教育的方式。它也是一种关于教育的特殊理想的表达，也是一种理解教育与社会之间关系的特殊方式的表达。公共教育的理想将教育视为公共利益的一个重要方面，是确保公共利益的重要机构。共同利益从来不是个人或特定群体想要或渴望的东西，而是总是超越这些特定的愿望，达到整个社会应该认为是可取的。当然，这确实使公共利益与个人和群体的愿望产生了紧张关系。在过去的几十年里，新自由主义的治理模式给这种特殊的教育机构带来了压力，并且据一些人说，它已经侵蚀了公共利益的理念。