Abstract

The core theme of this paper is the issue of knowledge and its transmission as a tool for possible emancipation. Through a brief reconstruction of the diffusion of a pedagogical-educational model that, during the Modern age, has been affirmed as universal, the paper emphasizes the relevance of the generally asymmetrical relationship between teacher and pupil. This type of relationship is problematized through the reflections of Jacques Rancière and Paulo Freire. Although with different sensitivities and theoretical positions, these two authors highlight the limits of this progressive narrative, founded on the assumption of a constitutive inferiority of the pupil. On the one hand – according to Rancière – we are confronted with the intimate connection between the inequality of the pedagogical device and the ’police’ partition of the social order. On the other hand, with Freire’s overview, we witness how the welfare, as well as the passive character of education, is revived within the theory of transformative praxis