Prof. Enrique Javier Díez Gutiérrez
University of León – Spain
Education always has been a space for ideological and political dispute because, through education, the collective imaginations and narrative and explanatory mental frameworks of societies and the people who in habit them are formed. It is a space in which ideological and political disputes arise in every decision made regarding how to approach the curriculum, school organization, or educational policies, since these decisions define how the educational model that will shape concrete practice in the field of education and the model of society that this education aims to achieve.
Pablo Freire stated that education is political. Because any form of seeing the world in a collective and shared way is a political approach. It involves taking a stance on what values, princi ples, and priorities will shape our understanding of the world, of what we have in common, of what concerns us as a community, of the “res pública”. Thus, to engage in education is to engage in concern for the common good, for the destiny of humanity, and for the future of subsequent generations.
This concern can be addressed from two fundamental approaches. From a pedagogy of selfishness that glorifies individual achievement, personal interest, particular talent, the pursuit of self-interest, and the search for advantage in relationships with others; or a pedagogy of the common good that promotes altruistic mutual support, solidarity among different people, the inclusion of diversity, and cooperation based on equality and justice in relationships with others. A choice must be made. A choice between these two radically different approaches. There is no possibility for neutrality. Neutrality only serves to justify the
status quo of power and inequality by doing nothing or looking the other way. As Martin Luther King stated: in this generation, we will have to repent not only for the wickedness of bad people, but also for the silence of so many “good” people who looked the other way in the face of such atrocities, as has happened with the Palestinian genocide, about which our sons and daughters will ask us: how could you have allowed this to happen without doing anything?
We are currently facing a serious dilemma. Nowadays, two ideological, social, and political projects are advancing throughout the world. These two projects incarnate two radically different ways of understanding human beings, economic and social relations, and education. The first one has its roots in a capitalist economic and social model, based on libertarian ideology and the reactionary conservatism of the far right and neoliberal capitalism. The second one has its roots in an economic and social model based on the common good, solidarity, human rights, and ethical-critical ecology, which is inevitably, grounded in an anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, anti-neoliberal, democratic, degrow thist, and feminist approach.
This project clearly advocates for inclusive and democratic anti-fascist pedagogy in the service of the common good. But, in essence, what is this anti-fascist pedagogy? What does it involve? which strategies should be applied in the classroom, in schools, on the street, at home, in society, and in educational and social policies?
This anti-fascist pedagogy draws on the experience of educational renewal movements, green waves, and practical experience being developed in many places and centers, which in turn comes from great educators throughout our history who have proposed genuine revolutions in education: Freire, Rosa Sensat, Freinet, Dewey, Montessori, and so many oth
ers who allow us to say in education, as Newton said, “we stand on the shoulders of giants.”
This anti-fascist pedagogy can be translated into specific strategies that should be applied throughout the educational process (in the school curriculum, in the functioning of schools, in relations with families and the community, in social education; that is, in a rhizomatic way: everywhere and at all times, because all time and space is and should be educational):
1. A Critical Pedagogy that confronts indoctrination and promotes education committed to the common good. Public education is the only system that ensures this possibility.
2. A Pedagogy of Human Rights and care for all living beings and the planet, based on ecology of degrowth that breaks away from the capitalist model.
3. A laic Pedagogy that respects freedom of conscience and allows everyone to coexist in schools and universities regardless of their atheism, agnosticism, or beliefs, which are private matters.
4. A Pedagogy of Memory that guarantees the right to truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees that barbarism will not be repeated. Impunity must be ended.
5. A Feminist Pedagogy that educates in equality and also educates boys in egalitarian masculinities.
6. A Pedagogy of Mutual Support that enables us to rethink life from the perspective of cooperation and solidarity rather than competition and individualism.
7. A Pedagogy of Inclusion that transcends integration and can be developed with adequate resources (reduction of class ratios, more teaching and social education staff, etc.).
8. A Pedagogy of the Essential that emphasizes a curriculum of fundamental, life-related knowledge that gives meaning to learning and prevents the desire to learn being transformed into a mere desire to pass exams.
9. A Pedagogy of Democratic Assessment that work from the Pedagogy of Error and focuses on assessment as a way of improving the entire education system, moving away from the “PISA regime” of standardized testing.
10. A Critical Digital Pedagogy that reclaims our digital sovereignty from the techno-feudal landlords of the new digital economy, who have appropriated the “white gold” of the
21st century: our students‘ data and digital communication channels.
11. A Slow Pedagogy that allows for a slow pace of teaching that slows down the stressful school and life rhythms in which we live.
12. An Intercultural and Anti-Racist Pedagogy that educates for global citizenship without exclusion and considers cultural difference as a value.
13. A Decolonial Pedagogy, an alternative education that decolonizes knowledge.
14. An Eco-social Pedagogy of degrowth, which would decolonize the dominant vision of unlimited growth in the age of collapse and teach us to live more simply with less so that others can live, redistributing the planet’s resources fairly.
15. A Pedagogy of Social Justice that educates in class consciousness and social rights, while questioning neoliberal entrepreneurship and the school as a producer of human resources for the market.
16. A Democratic Pedagogy that turns our centers into truly democratic schools.
17. A Pedagogy of Disobedience that educates in the right to critical
and civic disobedience in the face of the unjust system promoted by neo-fascism, neoliberalism, and capitalism.
All these proposals, and many more that could be listed, are radical. Yes, they are. Because they go to the roots of what would be a truly anti-fascist, anti-capitalist, and anti-neoliberal
model of education, a model consistent with human rights and the common good.
The educational community cannot remain indifferent to barbarism. Not to the planetary barbarism of climate change, nor to the economic barbarism of social exploitation, structural
injustice, and international plunder, but also not to the social and ideological barbarism of neo-fascism. The real weapon of this model is not just rubber bullets or tear gas; it is our silence and our complicit indifference.
Lucio Anneo Séneca, in the fourth century BC, stated: “we do not dare to do many things because we think they are difficult, but they are difficult because we do not dare to do them”.
We have to dare to dream. At stake is the future of our children and that of society as a whole.
Definitely, it is about promoting a political culture that starts in schools and spreads throughout society. We need an anti-fascist pedagogy that is politically and socially committed (Díez-Gutiérrez, 2025a). We need to move from critical pedagogy to critical praxis. We should take sides, feel involved, commit to the suffering of those around us, and implement a new and more committed pedagogy that connects classrooms with the challenges faced by social movements in the streets in order to rethink the current unjust social order and contribute to rebuilding another possible world.
To be a democrat, you have to be anti-fascist. To educate people in democratic values, the common good, and human rights, we must promote an education that is radically alternative
to the far right and neo-fascism. And school is a privileged place for educating children about the common good.
Now is the time to urgently establish an Anti-Fascist International of Education (AIE) that will make possible a different kind of education, a different kind of society, a different kind of planet, based on the humanist and democratic principles and values that we have established as a social community, in the face of the barbarism to which the market, capitalism, and neo-fascism are leading us.
¡No pasarán!
(Díez-Gutiérrez, 2025b).
Cited references
Díez-Gutiérrez, E. J. (2025a). Pedagogía Antifascista. Building an inclusive, democratic pedagogy for the common good in the face of rising fascism and xenophobia. Octaedro.
Díez-Gutiérrez, E. J. (2025b). They shall not pass! Why the far right wants to control public education and what to do to defend it. Plaza y Valdés.
