Educating for global citizenship in times of neoliberalism. Critical reflections on educational policies in the European field

Critical reflections on educational policies in the European field

Abstract

The article is based on an analysis of European educational policies in the field of citizenship and lifelong learning. It identifies how the Faure report (1972) was one of the last programmatic documents autonomous from the neoliberal Market. Since the Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development, during the ’80 and ’90, has appropriated the concept of lifelong learning, the neoliberal change has been made, with an increasingly dependency of education from the neoliberal market system. This tendency created ambiguity with regard to concepts that should call for an openness, such as the one for the global citizenship of 2016. If there are elements of interculturality, dialogue and respect, on the other hand, there is emphasis on competitiveness, employability of the global market context. Therefore, the article ends with a necessity of commitment to educational policies that can put the person at the center and be autonomous from the dominant financial system.