Page 33 - Igor Ž. Žagar in Ana Mlekuž, ur. Raziskovanje v vzgoji in izobraževanju: mednarodni vidiki vzgoje in izobraževanja. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut, 2020. Digitalna knjižnica, Dissertationes 38
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https://w w w.doi.org/10.32320/978-961-270-324-0.33-54
Inequality, Poverty and Education
in the Post-Yugoslav Space: from immobility
to inclusion?1
Paul Stubbs
I Introduction
n this paper, I want to focus on education from a social justice perspec-
tive; a perspective that is all too often squeezed out by two other perspec-
tives or frames. One, associated with the neoliberal phase of capitalism, ad-
dresses education in terms of preparation for the labour market, focusing
on the supposed skills and competences required in the post-industrial, ar-
tificial intelligence-driven, societies of the future and, in particular, on the
magic formula of STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathemat-
ics. The other, associated with what the Croatian sociologist Josip Županov
(2002) referred to as desecularization (occurring alongside descientisation,
retraditionalisation and repatriarchalisation), sees education as inculcating
and ensuring the reproduction of national, cultural, religious, values, with
schools as a place for prayer but not for sex education, apparently, and for a
singular, and distorted, reading of national history. Although not the topic
at hand here, I am particularly worried by the rise of a kind of authoritar-
ian neoliberalism across the region and beyond that manages to combine
the two frames perfectly well (Stubbs and Lendvai, 2019).
1 This paper is based on a keynote lecture delivered to the 4th annual scientific confe-
rence on Research in Education and Training in Ljubljana, Slovenia on 18 September
2019. Thanks to Igor Žagar and Ana Mlekuž for their encouragement, and to Karin
Doolan, Teo Matković, Saša Baucal and Slobodan Cvejić for comments on a previous
draft and for guidance in searching for, and interpreting, the relevant literature. Re-
sponsibility for the text is mine alone, of course.
33
Inequality, Poverty and Education
in the Post-Yugoslav Space: from immobility
to inclusion?1
Paul Stubbs
I Introduction
n this paper, I want to focus on education from a social justice perspec-
tive; a perspective that is all too often squeezed out by two other perspec-
tives or frames. One, associated with the neoliberal phase of capitalism, ad-
dresses education in terms of preparation for the labour market, focusing
on the supposed skills and competences required in the post-industrial, ar-
tificial intelligence-driven, societies of the future and, in particular, on the
magic formula of STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathemat-
ics. The other, associated with what the Croatian sociologist Josip Županov
(2002) referred to as desecularization (occurring alongside descientisation,
retraditionalisation and repatriarchalisation), sees education as inculcating
and ensuring the reproduction of national, cultural, religious, values, with
schools as a place for prayer but not for sex education, apparently, and for a
singular, and distorted, reading of national history. Although not the topic
at hand here, I am particularly worried by the rise of a kind of authoritar-
ian neoliberalism across the region and beyond that manages to combine
the two frames perfectly well (Stubbs and Lendvai, 2019).
1 This paper is based on a keynote lecture delivered to the 4th annual scientific confe-
rence on Research in Education and Training in Ljubljana, Slovenia on 18 September
2019. Thanks to Igor Žagar and Ana Mlekuž for their encouragement, and to Karin
Doolan, Teo Matković, Saša Baucal and Slobodan Cvejić for comments on a previous
draft and for guidance in searching for, and interpreting, the relevant literature. Re-
sponsibility for the text is mine alone, of course.
33
