The book chapter “Vernacular Epistemology and Participatory Practices as Alternatives to the Institutionalisation of Homo Educandus” by Vania Baldi (DigiMedia member) was published in the book Arts, Sustainability and Education. Yearbook of the European Network of Observatories in the Field of Arts and Cultural Education (ENO), edited by
Citation:
Baldi V. (2021) Vernacular Epistemology and Participatory Practices as Alternatives to the Institutionalisation of Homo Educandus. In: Wagner E., Svendler Nielsen C., Veloso L., Suominen A., Pachova N. (eds) Arts, Sustainability and Education. Yearbook of the European Network of Observatories in the Field of Arts and Cultural Education (ENO). Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3452-9_15
Abstract:
The article starts by analysing the origin and institutionalisation of the first education systems, based on the figure of the Homo educandus, a historical and cultural construct that conceives individuals as needy beings, unable to autonomously understand and learn about the things they need and how to address them. A figure that emerged in Europe five centuries ago, the Homo educandus is the cradle of the current normative and performative structure that frames the role and aims of training systems. Conceived as places where to transmit operational skills and notions that are profitable for the labour market and entrepreneurship, the pedagogical approaches that sustain and feed these systems are based on curricula that offer a cultural ethos based on competition, the standardised assessment of performances, the meritocratic ideology and the reduction of knowledge to something functional and suited to the training of specialised obedients. In contrast to these government devices present in the sphere of training, research that has encouraged diverse ways of interpreting, sharing and producing knowledge in different social and geopolitical contexts is presented. Exploring those knowledges and cultural practices based on rescuing vernacular and participatory learning processes, a new epistemological approach is highlighted, a (self-)reflexive and heterodox one in relation to the dominant approach, and welcomes new pedagogical experiences and sensitivities.
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