The colonial marks at school. A philosophical-educational view in primary schools in southern Mendoza

Abstract

The following research explores and addresses some concerns about modern school. It seems to be shaped exclusively for the function of forming beings for the future, the development, and the cumulative progress. This study addresses such delimitation, it proposes a philosophical educational reflection on the presences and absences in the school and seeks to produce critical knowledge about the ways of inhabiting it. To this end, we proceed to the construction of a theoretical framework that takes into consideration the categories of pedagogy of presence and pedagogy of absence as notions that enable the deconstruction of knowledge, practices, and pedagogical times for other ways of inhabiting the school. From the framework offered by the epistemologies of the south and from the community of inquiry proposed by Philosophy with children and young people, two educational communities in the south of Mendoza are studied. The field research study is approached considering four categories–pedagogy, community of inquiry, good living or living well and coloniality – and it is this last one the reason for the article. Based on the conceptualization offered by Aníbal Quijano, we seek to identify how coloniality is presented in schools, its marks; those inscriptions and vestiges of the colonial power pattern present in school dynamics, and it is under three forms that are identified: coloniality of absence, coloniality of the cradle and coloniality of valuations and practices. These offer a certain colligation map of traces of the colonial power pattern and make it possible to consider practices that open up the understanding of the world.