Rosa Cañadell
Retired Professor, licensed in Psychology and activist for public education.
picture: Created with AI
Recently, there have appeared, from different fields, articles reflecting on what we do or what happens in educational centers that justifies the increase of homophobic, racist, anti-democratic, sexist behaviors… In short, those that we had always considered to be of the extreme right and that were not used to appear in the classroom.
Apparently, all this has now changed and «being right-wing is fashionable» y se considera «and is considered «anti-establishment». There is an increase in attitudes and speeches imitating VOX (extreme right-wing party in Spain). A survey conducted by the CIS reveals that 12.4% of young people between 18 and 24 years of age consider VOX to be the party closest to their ideas. And four out of ten adolescent men are notconcerned at all about violence or gender inequality.
What have we done wrong at school so that so many young people and so many adults who have been educated in our classrooms are voting for the extreme right? What kind of contents and values are we transmitting in our schools so that hate and anti-equality speeches are so present in our students?
It is obvious that education is not the solution to everything, besides, school is also a reflection of what is happening in society, and if society is turning to the right and to the extreme right, our students are also infected. The ultra narrative has penetrated strongly in our society, throughout Europe, in Latin America and, above all, in the USA with the arrival of Trump. And, consequently, it has also penetrated the classrooms and has attracted a sector of our youth.
Even though we can’t fix the world through education, we can do some things.
Maybe rather than so much Entrepreneurial Competence and so much Emotional Competence, we should talk more about Political Competence. The majority of our youth do not know the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship, they do not know how a parliament works, they do not know what the organizations or people that call themselves “right-wing” or “left-wing” defend, they do not know what privatization of education, health, care for the elderly means, they do not know what kind of taxation we have or what taxes are for? If no one has explained to them what our civil war was, what Franco’s dictatorship meant, the repression against women, against LGTB people, against ideological dissidence? If they do not know about the tortures, deaths and murders during Franco’s regime, if they do not know how labor rights were achieved throughout history… If nobody has explained why people emigrate, what is happening in their countries and how many Catalans and Spaniards emigrated during and after the civil war… If they know nothing about all this, if this does not appear in the curricula as indispensable knowledge, if we have not reflected in class on all these facts… If we do not do all this, we leave our young people totally defenseless against the hate speeches of the right and the extreme right. The less education and less culture, the more radicalism and less criteria.
In addition, we have a great enemy, which is social networks. We have children and teenagers addicted to their cell phones, following the statements of youtubers and influencers (sometimes even within the educational centers themselves) and without knowledge or criteria to defend themselves, to distinguish what is true from what is a lie, what is valid or what is ethical. The right is very active in these networks, especially in TIK-TOK, which is one of the most watched by young people.
But it’s not only the social networks, there are also pornography sites. Teenagers see pornography for the first time at the age of 12 and almost 7 out of 10 (68.2%) consume it frequently. This consumption is focused on free online content (98.5%), mostly based on violence and inequality. A sexual and affective education that covers the subject and helps to have access to healthy, affective and non-violent sexuality is absolutely necessary. It is necessary to help them understand that sex is only lawful and satisfactory if it is desired by both parties and that imposition is totally aberrant.
It is therefore urgent to look for those alternatives that can make it possible for our educational task to help our students leave the educational system with sufficient values and knowledge to close the door to sexism, racism and attitudes of hatred and segregation.
