This study reflects on the role of education in contemporary society, the understanding of its relationship with democracy concept beneath neoliberal ideals, and its relationship with the teacher role in education.  It begins with a reflection on two documents: i) David Hare’s playscript “Straight Line Crazy” (2022), within the character Robert Moses argues that “the cure for democracy is more democracy” (p.11) ii) and António Gedeão´s poem the “Philosopher´s Stone” (1955).

Democracy and public education are two concepts linked to every human being equal right to education.  The use of it by political ideologies, imply changing their meaning to legitimate political actions, and the school role in contemporary society (Giroux, 2022; Biesta, 2022; Prange, 2004a).

Changes made by neoliberal ideologies, through the OECD, on education, puts public educational systems at risk: i) with education on the role to satisfy the social and economic needs, transforming the students in consumers; ii) with standardized pedagogical methodologies, and assessment systems to rank education quality and efficiency; iii) with curriculum being reduce to fit on the language of learning; iv)  and teachers assuming the role of specialized instructors on learning (Biesta et al., 2015; Säfström & Biesta, 2023, Prange, 2004a). 

Education theory and research has been developed to validate constructive theories, evidence, and effectiveness in education, through its technical and culture dimensions (Prange, 2004a), to legitimate the neoliberal ideology to transform education as a resource to anticipate the economic and technological future for society (Giroux, 2020; Biesta, 2006, 2007b; 2022, Säfström & Biesta, 2023). 

However, theory and educational research, can be of prior importance if used to help teachers and other education professionals to critically understand the implications of their action and what is asked of them by policy makers. (Biesta, 2007; 2021). To act critically towards agency, teacher must be able to be teacher, not to act as technicians specialized in learning, doing what they are instructed to do (Biesta et. al., 2014; Giroux, 2020). They must put education on the move, not by eliminating the risk, but by bringing the world, and new knowledge to the students (Prange, 2004a; 2004b; Biesta, 2022).  Education has the duty to resist the pedagogy of learning (Prange, 2004a), to fulfill its democratic dimension, defended by critical pedagogues as Freire (2021, 2023), Giroux (2022). Theory of Education must contribute to the beginning of a new paradigm education, that may reborn the intrinsic relational exchanges between society and education (Biesta, 2022; Säfström & Biesta, 2023) and develop a culture of critical conscious and emancipation as argued by Freire (2021, 2023).

This study purpose is to contribute to the theory of education with an epistemological and critical perspective of neoliberal versus critical pedagogy: Education servitude to society demands, or a humanist view for democratic and social participation through education of hope and emancipation, by studying the words used to legitimate ideologies: such as autocracy, being autocracy, or as autocracy through democracy. 

This paper starts with a critical reflection with a speech analysis (Orlandi, 1999) of Robert Moses (Hare, 2021) character about democracy, and the analyses of Gedeão´s (1955) poem. One wrote on a neoliberal context and the other on an autocratic regime, followed by the analysis of these concepts through the spectrum of political ideologies, and the critical paradigm. As Carvalho (1995) wrote, the choice of words, the rhythm, and formal organization, is the writer´s answer to a specific social experience, transforming poetry on a social document, that as Orlandi, (1999) argues, enables an epistemological approach to the ideas exposed. Hare (2022), and Gedeão´s work, served as the moto to develop a critical discussion between two different perspectives for democracy, education purpose and the role of teachers: i) on neoliberal ideal; ii) and the critical pedagogy perspective. It is a qualitative, epistemological study, based on a critical paradigm (Bloor et al., 2006.; Cecília De Souza et al., 2018; Taylor et al., 2016), with a content analysis (Bardin, 2011) of published documents on democracy, social change (Giddens & Sutton, 2021), education (and its purpose) (Biesta, 2022, 2016), teacher agency (Biesta et al., 2015; Priestley et al, 2015), and critical thinking (Giroux, 2022). Its goal is to develop a review on the use of words to legitimate ideologies, by turning them in new conceptualizations absorbed culturally as common sense. The content analysis will focus policy documents for education, from Scheichler (2018), and OEDC (2020), and Giroux (2022), Freire (2021) and Biesta’s (2022) ideas for the democratic public education. These concepts will be organized through data mapping, to enable a comparative analysis.

It is the goal of this study to build an approach to what is the concept of public democratic education with neoliberal ideology and the concept developed by critical pedagogues and theory in education scholars, previously referred, and with it contribute to the development of a new conception of publicness in education.

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