The paper contributes to the debate on what the basis of education should be, and to what degree education should be a critical science based on research as well as experience. The source of the discussion is the question of balance between child and society, education and policy in educational practice and research. The access to the question is critical and represents a counter voice to the hegemonic and politicized educational system in our culture. The text questions the extended distrust of education itself that lies within the strong goal-oriented management of our educational institutions, and in the political power of definition of what valuable knowledge is to children and young people. The above abstract was written to a chapter published in March this year in an edited book at Fagbokforlaget, Norway (Thuen, Myklestad & Vik, 2022). I would like to look at how an orientation from human subjectivity (Levinas 1998) and action (Arendt 1958) might dislocate the structures of the constructivist approach of today’s conceptualization of learning. In his little book Disagreement (1999) Ranciere asserts that the precondition of democracy is not agreement, but the will to difference; the will to disagree about right and wrong and the fight for real equality and justice, not only in general, but in concrete situations involving concrete human beings. One group in society that do not have a right to experience themselves wrongfully or unjustly treated is some of the refugee’s seeking asylum, and in particular the paperless refugees from non-European Muslim countries. They are kept in a helpless condition where they are not allowed to speak for their own rights or care for themselves by trying to better their condition. They seem to be categorized as «human waste» (Bauman 2003), and do not have a place in the world. They are invisible as subjects and not able to act themselves, or let others act for them. They do not have the right to speak for themselves from themselves. I intend to open a discussion on how questions regarding democratic care for so-called marginal human beings directly address our humanity in radical ways, and educationally challenge how we relate to the next generations of children and young people.

Arendt, H. (1958). The human condition. University of Chicago Press. Bauman, Z. (2003). Wasted lives: Modernity and its outcasts. Wiley. Levinas, E. (1998). Entre Nous. Thinking of the Other. Colombia University Press. Ranciere, J. (1999). Disagreement. University of Minnesota Press. Thuen, H., Myklestad, S. & Vik, S. (eds.). (2022). Pedagogikkens ide og oppdrag. Fagbokforlaget, 297-310.