Νational school systems have undergone deep reforms, to adapt to what is perceived to be the new requirements of work and life in globalised societies. Global and regional policy players have managed to establish school effectiveness and equity as fundamental principles, defining how schools should operate and for what they should strive regarding knowledge and other social outcomes. Sociological studies have documented abundantly the detrimental effects of this powerful discourse, which makes schools, teachers and students compete to demonstrate their special qualities and success, exacerbating inequalities. An important argument has been that social justice and equity is being transformed through the abstract representations and the technologies of power used to describe life in schools (Lingard et al., 2014; Robertson, 2018). This paper addresses the question of whether the critique made possible by modern sociological theories is sufficient to interrupt dominant discourses and practices in today’s globalised and multicultural societies and schools. Alongside efforts by scholars to read Bernstein’s work “with and through other resources” and to show its ongoing relevance (Ivinsion & Singh, 2018:461), we engage with his essay on “democracy and pedagogic rights” (Bernstein, 2000), which provides a critical perspective to the study of the social processes and relations sustained by pedagogic discourses. We re-read pedagogic rights “after the critique of rights” (McNeilly, 2016:269), using the resources and tools offered by radical democratic thinkers, who have revealed how liberal human rights reify existing regimes of power and restrict the advancement of radical politics. The concepts of “antagonistic engagement” (Laclau & Mouffe, 1998; Mouffe, 2008), and “cultural translation”, (Butler et al., 2012), which helps to “render the practice of human rights a micro-practice of radical democracy”, aids our thinking of how to “reclaim the radical in rights” (McNeilly, 216: 286). We also draw on two recent studies carried out in Greek schools, exploring how hegemonic discourses are played out at the local context. The first study focuses on literacy practices in disadvantaged schools of the Capital while the second explores informal relations between school and family in two neighbouring schools with differing reputations and status. While therapeutic practices appear to be predominant in the former case, the antagonistic discourses legitimising the action of parents and teachers in the second case suggest that reading ‘recontextualisation’ and ‘articulation’ against each other (Bernstein, 2000, Laclau & Mouffe, 1985) could enhance the analytical, critical and transformative possibilities of ‘pedagogic rights’.

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