2016 marks the five hundredth anniversary of the publication of Utopia by Thomas More. This book was a key moment in the history of European humanism with the affirmation of one of its fundamental components: the freedom to critique.

 Utopia has always had an educational dimension: changing the vision of the world, converting to new lifestyles, new sociabilities… Furthermore, the utopian approach is not just limited to a literary game, it implies social forces likely to support it. Hence, the idea of assembling reflections on this theme in the framework of a European sociology of education network, even if the call is open to contributions from history, philosophy, political sciences.

The utopian approach and its different proposals have been analysed many times, in particular with regard to the field of education. The aim of the conference is not to revisit these works. The conference proposes to focus on exchanges on the issue or the reworking of the critical positioning of social sciences. How management recuperated the contributions of social sciences of the 1970s and 1980s. The change of scale linked to globalisation has led to a certain crisis of critique. How can the different utopic proposals and the resulting analyses help build a new exteriority?

This issue can be looked at from different angles, though the list is obviously not exhaustive:

• revisiting the pedagogical utopias of the 1960s in light of current evolutions of the comprehensive project.

• the crisis of left-wing critique in the field of education in the 1980s and the passage of the initiative towards a new Right.

• anti-globalism: a new utopia? 

• ecology: a new utopia? 

• the return of theocratic utopias

• what remains today of the European utopia? The integration project being tested by the recognition of differences…

THOMAS MORE 1516 Utopia, éd. Dirk Martens, Leuven BLOCH E. 1954-1959 Das Prinzip Hoffnung.Frankfurt. DROUIN-HANS A.-M. 2004 Éducation et utopies, Paris, Vrin MANNHEIM K. 1929 Idéologie und Utopie Berlin. PESSIN A. 2001 L’imaginaire utopique aujourd’hui, Paris, PUF WRIGHT Erik Olin 2010 Envisioning real utopias, Brooklyn-London