Abstract

O’LOUGHLIN, Michael. IMAGINING A DECOLONIZING PEDAGOGY FOR CHILDREN: A CRITICAL SOCIAL-PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE. Psic. da Ed. [online]. 2024, n.57, pp.23-32.  Epub May 03, 2025. ISSN 2175-3520.  https://doi.org/10.23925/2175-3520.2024i57p23-32.

A description of the challenges faced by teachers in contemporary times, when war, displacement, and other reactionary forces render childhood precarious and result in subjectivity severed from history and characterized by melancholy, is used as a basis for probing the profound implications of these contexts in pedagogical work. The author intersects the fields of pedagogy, psychoanalysis, and decolonial theory to explore the potential of a pedagogy that enhances possibilities for children, particularly those from subaltern groups, for ethical relationality and agentic possibility. Psychoanalysis is proposed as a tool to rescue narratives and restore metaphorical possibility in children whose subjectivities are often obstructed by external ideological forces such as neoliberalism and racial capitalism. The article also suggests some core principles that critical educators might use to construct a decolonizing pedagogy for children through a critical social-psychoanalytic perspective, underscoring that, for this, critical and introspective teacher preparation is needed.

Keywords : Children subjectivity; Decolonial theory; Pedagogy; Psychoanalysis; Teachers.