Prefigurazione e pedagogia critica

The intersection of the current debate around prefiguration with education offers an interesting entry point from which to approach the orientation, in our own time, of imaginaries and practice in educational and social situations marked by injustice and exclusion. Critical pedagogy argues that the education of adults and young people (in formal and informal contexts) can be emancipatory, offering a collection of real-world mediations with which to achieve social justice through a sustained, critical approach to all forms of oppressive systems – including the systems of neoliberalism. Critical pedagogy has a profound relevance to the contemporary world, both as a current of philosophical enquiry and as an educational and formative outlook that is inextricably linked to political practice. In its commitment to the creation of ‘an open, social, democratic education capable of problematizing social issues and questions in a time of commoditization’, it has clear areas of overlap with prefigurative visions of society. Therefore, our intention in this chapter is to discuss, in theoretical terms, how ideas and principles from critical pedagogy might enrich certain examples of prefigurative visions of specific social movement organizations committed to the ecological transition, ecofeminism and social transformation.