The Opening Education as a Strategy for the Democratisation of Knowledge and Formation of Social Imagination

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present the main assumptions and ways of understanding the opening education as embedded in the name of the Opening Education Laboratory of thePolish Ethnological Society. The article presents contemporary educational policy developed in Poland from the anthropological perspective, showing its limitations in developing of the broadly understood social and cultural diversity and equality policies. The main purpose of this article is to address the question of whether opening education can be used as a tool and practices that develop democratisation of knowledge, to shape an open society and creation a social imagination. An important aspect of the paper is the critical diagnosis of the official historical-education discourse in Poland, which highlights patriotic and even nationalist issues and silences the values and socio-cultural practices that guarantee an increase of tolerance and openness to otherness. A reflection on the category of opening education seems particularly important in a situation where, on the one hand, we observe discourses and practices of an exclusionary and discriminatory nature, which favour the creation of a closed society, and on the other hand, we recognise the need to develop a strategy to counter stigmatising stereotypes, as well as ethnic, religious and gender-based conflicts, which we observe in social life and public sphere.

Keywords

• edukacja otwierająca
• demokratyzacja wiedzy
• polityka równościowa
• wyobraźnia społeczna