Society in Zygmunt Bauman, the school and the right to education in times of lyophilisation of the public space

Abstract

This article aims to understand the rationalities of solid and liquid society characterized by Zygmunt Bauman as metaphors of modernity, relating them to the school and the concept of right to education in times of lyophilisation of the public space. The article consists of a bibliographic research and it discusses the characterization of society in order to decrease the public space. It also problematizes this context based on the concepts of school and the right to education. In this scenario, space and time are reconfigured, announcing another rationality. The virtuality of a networked world made it possible for time to become a mechanism in the conquest of space. Regarding education, in solid modernity, the formation of individuals had as its purpose an education for the whole life, which no longer applies, in Bauman's understanding, in a liquid society. Just as the teaching function represented true and unquestionable knowledge, today it gains a different connotation, given that the power of globalized relations democratized access to information and knowledge. Liquidity announces the centrality of the individual in an increasingly smaller public space, in which it is necessary to discuss about the right to education, this being the set of norms that precepts and regulates the laws regarding education. There are no conclusive answers for confronting such a proposition, but reflecting on these challenges is a first step for it is fundamental to broaden the understanding of the present time, the rationality that operates in it. And, from this, to understand school in such a way that can contribute to the formation of reflective and critical identities.

Keywords

• solid modernity
• liquid modernity
• right to education
• school
• public space.