Apolitical education

In a context where populist political dispositions hold the newsworthy reins of procedural politics in the U.K. and the U.S.A., a stronger relationship between education and politics is in high demand. Educators are asking serious questions about, for example, how to best teach their students to be more politically engaged. Without attempting to diminish the significance of these questions, this paper will approach the relationship between politics and education in a different way. While most contemporary philosophy and theory argues, to a greater or lesser extent, that the political pervades every aspect of individual lives, this is not the consciously lived experience of most people. Rather than negate these experiences in the name of a fully developed ‘critical consciousness’ (or its absence), this paper will suggest that political and educational philosophy must account for what Laurent Dubreuil names the ‘apolitical’. Recognising, teaching, or creating space for the apolitical would not mean advocating for apolitical dispositions in the colloquial sense, where one would not care about politics at all. The apolitical instead figures that which exceeds the political and, in doing so, might remind us of what the political should protect or leave alone.

Dr Emile Bojesen is a Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Winchester, where he is programme leader of the MA Philosophy of Education. He writes on the experiential, relational and political dimensions of educational thought and practice. He has published widely in journals such as Studies in Philosophy and Education, Educational Philosophy and Theory, Ethics and Education and Philosophy Today. He has recently co-edited a book titled Against Value in the Arts and Education (2016).