Born out of Struggle in Argentina: Bachilleratos Populares with/in/against the State

• In Event: Education for Societal Transformation: Alternatives for a Just, Holistic Future

Abstract

Naomi Klein has convincingly argued that globally, disasters and crises often result in disaster capitalism, as vulture capital swoops in to make a profit and privatize any remaining public institutions. Yet, she notes, they can also result in social solidarity and a fundamental rethinking of capitalist social relations. Similarly, post-capitalist theory argues that spaces that prefigure a post-capitalist world are all around us if we know where to look. Prefiguration theory suggests that we can build the world we want to live in while also engaging in affirmative resistance to change the policies and structures that keep the current unequal form of monopoly and finance driven capitalism in place.

But ultimately, it is the learning that takes place within these “third spaces” that leads to counter-hegemonic knowledge, new social relations of solidarity, the recovery of indigenous and other subjugated knowledges, and an expansion of what we consider spaces that educate. And it is the building of global networks of solidarity among these spaces that has the potential to make them powerful enough to challenge hegemonic power from below.

Argentina’s economic depression, which began in the mid-1990s, drove unemployment and poverty to levels the country had never experienced and led many workers to occupy abandoned enterprises to create jobs in a situation where it was utterly impossible to find employment. These cooperative enterprises became community centers with cultural events, community radio stations, and bachilleratos populares (people’s schools) where youth and adults in the community could continue their education, an education respectful of the values of cooperativism and of the surrounding working class community.

In this presentation, we will describe bachillerato popular IMPA, which was self-organized within the first occupied factory. There are currently 200 cooperative factories and over 100 bachilleratos populares in Argentina. We will explore bachillerato IMPA’s struggle to survive without state support, and later its successful demand for the state to provide teacher’s salaries. We will also describe its process of horizontal governance through student and teacher assemblies and its unique pedagogy. Influenced by Paulo Freire’s notion of critical consciousness and Argentinian progressive educators, Olga and Leticia Cossettini, who promoted active learning, these people’s schools are committed to an active counter-hegemonic pedagogy, not only in the curriculum, but also in the social relations in the classroom and in the wider culture of the school.

Not only is establishing these third spaces in the shadow of the State difficult, sustaining them can be just as difficult, especially when they are led by social activists. Such programs or schools can experience a strong backlash that can come from elements within the community or the State. With the 2023 election of Javier Melei, people’s schools and the their host cooperatives will undoubtedly more than ever, have to find ways to sustain themselves in the face of attacks from the State.

Authors

• Gary L. Anderson, New York University

• Carol Anne M. Spreen, New York University